epilogue to Post 27: The developers of SWG now want to introduce purple mandalorian armors.

There’s quite a bit here that everyone is forgetting, but I’ll address some points someone brought up that they’d like answered. The best I can do is speculate and give anecdotal evidence that such things *may* be fact.

1. What was the nature of the SOE relationship with its licensing partner, LA?

Consdiering what happened with Obisidian’s KOTOR 2 (pushed out incomplete), LA seems to control their property with an iron fist. It’s been said again and again that the approval process for changes takes a long time and that LA has the final say so.

2. Who within that relationship originated the the idea of the NGE? Sold the idea? Rode herd on the idea until it launched?

Most likely someone at LA. Someone asked why the game wasn’t doing as good as WOW was at that point. The ball started rolling from there. I think it might have been some form of group think that as people got sold on the idea one by one, no one stopped to say “omg this sucks” because that would mean throwing out all the work they had done previously.

3. Who – if anyone – opposed the idea? Or changed the idea while it was in gestation?

No clue. And here is something NO ONE HERE, except Raph, seems to have realized: They need to earn a living. This means doing exactly what your job is. If your job is to make something work, and the boss says make it work, you don’t ask why. If you ask why, rock the boat, you get fired. You get fired so hard, it’ll be difficult to get a job in the same field. Whoever it was that spawned the idea, the responsibility lies with them.

4. What was the calendar of the NGE? When was it originated? What resources were allocated to it? Which areas were neglected because capital and manpower were denied them?

No way to tell without insider information that will most likely breach an NDA and cause someone to get sued.

5. What was the fallout within SOE and LA? Who was promoted and who, faint hope, punished for NGE in action when its implications became clear?

Same as 4.

As far as the data mining goes, I never realized that angle until Raph mentioned it and I started making some connections. I was at the first 2003 fan fest, and one of the devs said that every piece of text ever typed into the game is saved. Algorithims exist, and my current employer actully developed this kind of software, to go through vast volumes of freeform text and derive statistical analysis based on certain key words. It was originally developed for the auto industry to look at questionaires sent out by manufacturers. (You want to talk real money here, the cost of developing an MMO is miniscule compared to launching a new vehicle design)

Impication? Simple. They can comb the vast amounts of your chats, tells, spatial, guild chat, group chat, cross-server tells, in-game mail, etc. and see what players are telling eachother. They also can use this same software on the forums and get a decent overall picture of not only what players are saying about SWG, but what they’re saying about other games IN SWG.

The software is extremely advanced. It’s not just saying “WOW was mentioned 298357223 times during the first week of June”. It’s saying “45% of people mentioned WOW in positive light about the gameplay mechanics during this time frame.” This is extremely useful statistical data that coming out of this software.

Like any software though, it’s still at the mercy of “Garbage in, garbage out” and I think that’s the lesson that needed to be learned from this particular data mining experience.

Then again, I’m in marketing so I’d tell you it was a lesson in marketing.

I guess I was wrong in that you were still with SOE when the NGE was developed though. Oh well, I made a mistake and acknowledge the error.

I left SWG Soon after the NGE,being totally disgusted with the dumbing down of the game.I left SWG Heartbroken.It was a great game with a lot of potential,not to mention all the hard work and effort i put into my characters pre NGE nullified with its release.As other people have posted above i now avoid anything sony and will not recomend sony games or products.The only thing that will get me back to SWG is a Pre NGE server.
i want to come back.I miss it so much.I had so much fun.

Well, if you want to build a Cadillac, you don’t need finished design plans to see that it’s going to be a Gremlin, or something similar.

If you remember, Raph left. They said something to the effect that they and Raph didn’t have the same goals at “this” point, or something like that.

I wouldn’t be too harsh with Raph

I certainly hope he had nothing to do with the NGE. I’m assuming it was out of his control and I certainly hope he wasn’t one of the guys at the water cooler going “oh cool! This is gonna be iconic! They’ll love it! Ignore the people on the forums. They don’t represent the majority.”

I hope not. Right Raph?

Well, first of all, there is an existing playerbase—not everyone left after NGE and some new faces surely joined the party. Reverting SWG to its state previous to NGE would alienate the existing playerbase, and while you as someone of the former playerbase might not care what happens to them, learning from past mistakes means not making the same error twice. Second of all, do you honestly think that reverting SWG to its state previous to NGE would suddenly attract everyone back? Certainly not. After all, many SWG veterans have even said that SOE’s brand has suffered and that they have little trust in SOE. It’s really not a simple matter of changing the game yet again. SOE has to do something more to win your hearts and minds back, if at all possible.

I don’t think rollback is what vets want.

The other failure of the NGE can probably be put down to two concepts: Feature Creep and Groupthink.

Feature creep, in that the NGE was originally billed as a new introductory area replacing the starting space station.

Groupthink, in that in these large meetings, the enthusiastic people pushed the idea of this new game system and the people who should have known better got caught up in it. Except for those developers who left the team, that is.

I remember reading something about a “new player experience” back in spring of 2005. I did not expect it would mutate into the NGE by November.

After what SOE/LA did that brought on the NGE, did you honestly expect people would just move on or stop talking about it? Do you really believe that John Smedley’s admitting that the NGE was a mistake, was going to just make things magicly better? SOE/LEC brought this upon themselves and I dont feel the slightest pitty for them at all.

After 2+ years since NGE launched, it is still a failure to this day. Where is the huge influx of new players that the NGE was supposed to bring in? Apparently, not playing SWG, but other games.

And as I have said since the launch of NGE, if I had of known Dec 2004 what I know now, I would not have picked up a copy of SWG. And I am sure that there are others out there that say that .also

Question why there are still articles.

It’s been more than 2 years, vet SWG players haven’t forgotten and I doubt they will forget untill they get what they’ve been asking since April 2005.

Those people, Smeldey, Freeman or any other people who helped NGE, will never care if people blame them or not. I know Smedley admitted it was a failure a few times, but why he never does something to reverse this?

All articles, hate speeches are made by vets and it seems we’ll keep seeing em… Just look at this blog, 153 Responses to “Tired of hearing about the NGE” and counting. SOE has a bad name since Nov 2006 just because of us. Vanguard fiasco also added more to it (and remember Vanguard has many vet SWG players).

Hello all,
I beta tested SW:G and played post-release right up until about a month after the NGE. I miss the sandbox that was SW:G. And am really upset at the way they treated us as customers. It will be a LONG time before I trust SOE enough to subscribe to a game.

There has been no apology, as has been stated here. Only a slight regret by a select few. That does NOT cover it… And I’m sorry that it rubs a lot of people the wrong way, as it was, and in some cases still is, their “baby” that got kicked around. But the frustrations of many ex-players still have not run it’s course.

Raph, I am a huge fan of your designs and such, I sometimes don’t agree with you, but that’s normal. In this instance, I don’t agree. Only by thrusting this back up to discussion every once in awhile, will other developers take notice of this lesson and not make the same mistake.

I have moved on to Eve-Online which is just an incredible game, both in depth and community. And I can’t recommend it highly enough, although it does have it’s drama out-of-game the results in-game are just as exciting.

With all that said I still do miss my Teras Kasi and the people from Chilastra.

Wow, nice backlog of reading for me to catch up on

For the record, I left SWG *before* the CU precisely due to “running out of things to do”/”not enough content”. So it did happen

Can I be the moderator?

Darniaq: “…carthartis by inertia.”

Holy crap that’s a good one.

I’m sorry An addendum to my last post:

So many experts talking about SWG, SOE and the NGE from so many different angles but all of them, all of you, either only know a fragment of the story or else are only able to tell a fragment of the story – and each fragment is from a different position on the astrolabe.

Despite the passage of two years, no-one seems to know or, at least, told, the complete story.

Here are questions that do not seem to have been answered conclusively yet;

1/. What was the nature of the SOE relationship with its licensing partner, LA?

2/. Who within that relationship originated the the idea of the NGE? Sold the idea? Rode herd on the idea until it launched?

3/. Who – if anyone – opposed the idea? Or changed the idea while it was in gestation?

4/. What was the calendar of the NGE? When was it originated? What resources were allocated to it? Which areas were neglected because capital and manpower were denied them?

5/. What was the fallout within SOE and LA? Who was promoted and who, faint hope, punished for NGE in action when its implications became clear?

I ask these questions not because I have any stake in SOE or in MMOGs or in the wider industry – I don’t – but simply because I once played the game, enjoyed it and am interested in what happened to it?

Funny thing of all the NGE stuff is…they didn’t learn a thing from it.
They are actually doing the same stuff (ignoring their customer base) with Vanguard right now by forcing the Team-PvP players into a FFA ruleset.

@Raph – Apologies

Jonathan –

I don’t really care about your post about Freeman. I wasn’t even addressing your post. My response was regarding Verney’s follow up article that was contained IN your post.

Not everything is about you.

What the NGE did was the equivalent of my teaming showing up for a baseball game and finding the field had been turned into a playground.

If that happens wouldn’t you be pissed? Sure you can say “well its just a game” – but often things matter a little more than that.

There are hundreds of exactly identical baseball fields all around the country. As long as baseball exists, such playfields will exist. They just might be more inconvenient to get to.

SWG was like Disneyland. There’s several of them, but each unique.

How much obligation does Disney have towards changing the riders, adding or removing them, or even changing the direction and entry fee? For someone who went there for sole purpose of shaking Mickey’s hand every weekend, the removal of Mickey actors will be devastating, and remove the only purpose to go.

Is emotional attachment something that should be covered in service agreement? Which items would be covered there? Skill balance? Visual and audio assets? Circle of friends one makes online or guild memberships?

Every change in any MMO causes a percentage of players to rage quit. Should any change then be forbidden, even bugfixes which could cause change to gameplay, but fix gamebreaking flaws?

All game-ish virtual worlds exist on definition of virtual items, and clearly state that player has no right to any aspect of this world. In addition, any change is covered.

Should these games come with a warning label: “Warning – this game may cause emotional attachment, attachment to virtual objects which may perish at any time, and loss of service may cause extreme emotional trauma for prolonged periods of time. Before subscribing, consult with your medical record for fitness of subscribing to such service”?

After all, in real world, items come and go, shops open and close, worplaces apear and disaper. Why do people react so strongly in relation to virtual items, where changes in real world are much more drastic?

And if gaming addition is added to the list of medical conditions as recently proposed, what impact will that have on virtual worlds? Adding a warning label will merely remove company’s responsibility in case of any change, no matter how drastic, both legal and ethical.

Ok, so I’m out of things a few days and the web explodes again on an NGE-related topic? Come on guys. Just a few things have happened since then including SWG itself getting, like, better and stuff.

I swear, the I-was-abused angst about the NGE rivals only the launch of you-mean-I-can’t-be-Luke SWG itself. It has long since surpassed even the trammelizing of UO as the hot button issue of our time. But at this point it’s the Paris Hilton of topics: painfully obvious even to those partaking that there simply isn’t any reason to be talking about it anymore other than carthartis by inertia.

Let. It. Go!

Raph said people left early on was “running out of things to do’/'not enough content”

wouldnt that be because the game was released early and the only real thing to do was run terminal missions? explore the worlds and find all the broken dungeons (poi’s), and enjoy the cantina’s.

Even half complete (just my opinion)it was still the best virtual world ive ever journeyed into, or probably ever will be, though i have hope with Raph’s new company.

…there’s this retroactive sense in some quarters that SWG was doing poorly from the get-go and that’s just not the case. Doing poorly and not hitting expectations are not the same thing.

Which is exactly why I am making the case that the non-disclosure blocks are counterproductive. Or at least, some of them. For my part, if I perceive an individual or organization as withholding information, I tend to assume the worst-case scenario, under the logic that “they must be hiding something.” Especially when “they” have a HISTORY of hiding something as cataclysmic as the NGE.

I’ve been playing RPGs since the late 1970′s, Raph. I’ve rubbed shoulders with RPG designers over the years, and I’ve always been interested in how various games actually do as sellable products. I see SWG as lining up in the tradition of pen-and-paper RPGs like Traveller and other similar products that tried to buck the generic level-based mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve always seen skillset-based RPGs as an interesting concept with a lot of potential, but no one quite seemed to really pull off a stunning success, whether it was because their profession systems were too cumbersome for tabletop gameplay, or because they lacked a rewarding character-advancement system. I thought SWG was a noteworthy advancement of that model. It came VERY close to pulling off a successful system. I just think it’s a damn shame SOE and LucasArts punted and reverted the game back to a level-based system.

All that to say, I would love to see some sort of in-depth analysis of the economics of the game. What WERE the actual subscription figures? What WERE the factors that drove those numbers up or down, or held them back? What WERE SOE’s and LucasArts’ various revenue projections for the game — prior to launch, prior to the CU, and during the development of the NGE? I only have my own perspective as a gamer to go on, and my own guesses as to what inhibited the growth of the game’s subscriber base were fairly simple: (1) The bugs (GAHH!!!); (2) The lack of clearly-recognizable quest content (all those NPCs with quest icons over their heads always seemed to be offering content that was either a bit too tough for my nOOb Marksman, or too easy when I went back and talked to them later); and (3) The lack of an up-to-date game manual that took characters beyond the six entry professions. Granted, the gaming community did a superb job on the SWG Forums filling in the info vacuums for the various advanced professions, but I don’t think the average new player had any idea of the existence of the forums. I know I didn’t discover them until three months after I’d started playing. I know, I know… people (especially, it would seem, Nancy McIntyre) think no one reads manuals anymore, but would an up-to-date downloadable PDF document have been too much to ask? Would that not have been less costly than TWO MAJOR REVAMPS? Hell, next time, ask me — I’d be happy to help write the thing.

Anyway, all that to say I’m just wondering if my three guesses are off target.

I also think a well-crafted SWG built in the tradition of the old skillset-based game (as opposed to a WoW-styled level-based RPG) would capture TENS of millions of subscribers around the world. I’m curious about that gut-level guess, too.

Either way, the retention rate was about 25 percent, or one in four.

It doesn’t change 1 million boxes sold, 250,000 playing. And the only people how many of those were multiboxers are SOE’s accounting / billing dept.

I don’t know if 25 percent retention typical for the industry, I’ll admit.

I didn’t say that 250K players was bad, it was actually quite good for all intensive purposes unless you compare it to the phenom known as WoW.

You can play with the numbers all you want and get pretty much any result you want from it. Look at Torres 80/20 remarks made shortly after the NGE as an example.

I was over the NGE on day one. However, outside of the pros and cons of any data mining that may have gone on and whether or not it was used properly, I think there were more than a few lessons to be learned. No need to rehash those lessons, either. From what I’ve seen and read, they have been learned. The unfortunate part is how much damage was done to the reputation of the game. Perception, unfortunately, *is* reality. Anything with the Star Wars logo slapped on it has a *lot* higher expectations placed on it to begin with. We’ll see what happens.

An interesting statistic…

SWG prior to the Combat Upgrade sold 1 million copies.

Approx 250,000 people are reported to have been playing at the time of the Combat Upgrade according to the most recent chart at another website, that Raph has endorsed as being as close to factual as you can get without it coming from SOE. This number does NOT include multiboxers, which pretty much everyone had two accounts. Some had 20 accounts or more.

Three out of every four people that bought the box didn’t sub up past their initial ‘free’ month.

Let that sink in for a bit…

Also an interesting note was that the majority of people that were going for Jedi had multiple accounts to support the account going for Jedi or for the account that had obtained Jedi. People blast Jedi being in the game (DUR!! IT’S NOT IN CANNON (yes I mispelled it on purpose)!!! IT DOESN’T FIT TEH TIMELINE!!), but that pretty much saved it financially from the beginning.

BTW: Here’s a post that basically talks about Jeff Freeman being the poster boy initially even though his original postings were taken out of context and he was only responsible for saying the new fast action combat was his: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/72835-SWG-NGE-Crying-Freeman

I’m confused as to what the lesson is supposed to be. Don’t change things? That’s obvious.

But wasn’t there 750,000 people who purchased an SWG box but did not subscribe? That’s an overwhelming majority of people who won’t post on a message board or a blog. Where is the lesson for that? How do you change things to entice those people to join the game? Especially when you’re not allowed to change anything due to avatar rights?

From the outside, having never been involved in any capacity, I’m reading four things. The grindy jedi, the levels, deleting classes and twitch. Of those 4, the only thing I see as being COMPLETELY misguided is the classes being deleted. I’ll readily admit though I may not be reading it correctly. There is a bit of noise.

Although, I must say, the degree and frequency of the lost-love theme seems to be unique to SWG. It is rather poignant.

Hrmm, I tried SWG and I thought it was a level grind game. Maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance, and then again all games do have some grind to them, even UO did. But I think I must have missed SWG’s full extent of non-grind game play. I did see some of that, did have some “sandbox” feel. I’m thinking that SWG had alot of game play that wasn’t centered around questing for levels and items. Yet, it also had that, the levels and items based on level progression, and that’s what turned me off from it (maybe without seeing the other side).

The fact so many players did see SWG as a sandbox game leads to something, and that’s the lack of other sandbox games to go to. Feeling screwed in your game is bad enough, but it just makes it so much worse when there’s no other games like that to go to.

I think I’m seeing more proof that there are indeed alot of gamers who want the sandbox.

For those who say that it’s just a game and that people shouldn’t get all upset about it, I say bull. Take a golfer’s favorite driver away from him and see what happens. Fill in a fisherman’s favorite fishing pond and see how he reacts. Most importantly though, as an example, take the Cleveland Browns out of Cleveland and see what the goddamnMFingdieahorribledeath happens!!! (While the overwhelming majority of us don’t really wish any harm to that scumbag, we certainly will never forget nor forgive and damn him if he thinks we’ll ever allow his induction into the Hall of Fame. Not even as long as we have cold dead fingers to reach from the grave with!)

Do you see my point?

An apology won’t change anything.
A pre-CU server won’t change anything.
A pre-CU emulator won’t change anything.

The NGE is the examply of “How you mustn’t do it.” It’s not just a spot of ink on SOE’s record, it’s burned in deep with huge letters. They will never get rid of it as long as they exist. And there will always be someone ranting about the NGE. And as long as it keeps other companies from making the same error, I don’t have any problems with that.

Frankly NGE was so bad it deserves every punch it gets. Its like other historical topics that -never- will be dropped.

That Chip Guy said on June 13th, 2007 at 5:51 am:

I know it doesn’t take much out of a person to post a rant on the Internet, but still — that someone can draw a parallel between JFK’s assassination and the NGE demonstrates a massive lack of perspective.

lol yeah I maybe was getting a little over my head on that one. I blame it on the beer.

That Chip Guy said on June 13th, 2007 at 8:41 am:

And yet, I have to remind myself — probably 95 percent of the people who left SWG have well-adjusted lives with family, friends, jobs, outside hobbies and other things to fill the gap that the NGE left in some of them.

There’s the wounded ex-player, and then there’s the player who simply walked away and tried something new without acting 18 months later as though his/her hand had been chopped off

I’am stuck in a wheelchair, I only got a sister left living in the family, I live on the unemployment benefit fund every month and I value these games for being a really good social contact with the rest of the world. Do you mean that Iam any diffrent than those 95% in anyway just because I still grief the lost of many fine friends and want a closure?

Conclusion: JFK was over my head, Raph is tired of the moaning about the NGE and Im gonna to respect that, That Chip Guy is entitled to his opinion even if Im one of the 5% outcasts that doesnt have a life to fill the gaps with and I dont really understand what that was all about.

I here by retire myself from this discussion.

Take care all

The Second Day Vet

I’m amazed so many people (and companies) so totally miss the “core” of what it means for a “game” to be MMO.

Pure and simple, it’s all about community.

The game is just like that little speck that an oyster ends up turning into a pearl. When people make the comment that an MMO is “just” a game, they’re showing they just don’t get it.

Some ex-SWG players realise it, some don’t, but the real reason people are so pissed off with the NGE is because of what it did to the community, not what it did to the “game”.

“# Just a bystander said on June 13th, 2007 at 9:37 am:

@ Wildcat84 and crew: A corporate CEO isn’t going to apologize to 10 rabid preCU fanbois.

It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t undo the NGE. It wouldn’t undo the CU. It wouldn’t undo the myriad of mistakes, errors, and monumental screw ups everyone at SOE: Austin has done with SWG – from design document stage to execution to maintaining and improving the live service. Everyone is culpable; from Koster to Smedley to the no name artists designing box art.
“

You know what, it’s that sort of arrogance from high executives (btw, Smed isn’t a CEO, he’s President of SOE) that ticks off customers the most.

Damn skippy Smed should DIRECTLY apologize to SWG subscribers. You see, MMOs are service businesses. The customer repeats his purchase every month. This means you have to sell them on staying every single month.

That’s why they are hurting so badly across the board from the NGE. SOE is the MMO company best known for screwing their customers without batting an eye. That is their reputation. That is Smed’s reputation, whether he likes it or not.

Only he can do something to change that.

Frankly I hope he doesn’t. Continuing on as he is makes his failure all the more certain. And when Smed is canned, I plan to throw a party. As I’ve said, I don’t know him personally, only from how he’s acted with respect to SWG. He may be a good person to other people, but to SWG vets, he’s demon spawn evil. To this date he’s done ZERO to give us any reason to change our minds on that impression.

@79: That Chip Guy

Well it is easy. There is always cheaper item of equal or better quality than Sony product.

Pcs? Whos is enough stupid to buy Sony notebook, while you can get cheaper notebook with more features than Sony.

Xbox1? Best mediacenter for your living room ever. Look at XBMC And PS3? Expensive piece of… you know what.

Wii and DS? Story of itself, definetly better than what you get from Sony side. Btw, i played games on machines that had graphics resolution of 80×64 pixels, so you can see that i prefer gameplay over sparkling graphics.

Btw, i could buy Sony LCD but i got myself Samsung and you know what? Sony lets Samsung to produce LCDs for them, but charging 20-50% more for simmilar model of Samsung

Oh, well i could be happy custommer and buy that product with 4 letters but i won’t. I’ll spend more time to find cheaper and better offer than just go for “good” name.

Btw, if you can’t hurt company that hurted you, just hurt their parent company but let them know why did you do it. Don’t be arse and tell them “Precu4TW” but explain to them that you were disapointed with quality of service of one division and you are not doing any other transaction with corporation as whole.

G.

Raph why were you influenced so much by Caella.
Did you ever get to know Caella beyond the forums.
Or know why Caella said so much and fought so much for Caella’s style of gameplay which you seemed to give in to so much?

I find it fascinating that two people with purchasing authority in corporations claim to be declining products from a completely separate division of a large conglomerate based solely on a bad experience with an unrelated personal entertainment service.

If these corporations were publicly held, or the purchasing was being done for a nonprofit or governmental agency, I would consider that a breach of fiduciary duty. To say nothing of the complete lack of perspective.

@ Jonathon:

There’s no information about me that matters, other than I’m a bystander – I’m a gaming enthusiast, a gaming hobbiest (sp?). I’ve no vested interest in it other than I am a fan of MMOs, enjoy playing MMOs, but I don’t wail around in self pity because SOE kicked my (PRECU) puppy (that constantly peed on the carpet) to the pound.

As I previously stated, my interest in it is because it’s a fascinating story.

I enjoyed SWG for what it was – a GAME. And ANYONE that compares the PRECU/CU/NGE debacle to the assassination of a President, a devestating earthquake, or any other real life travesty has some serious issues. But that’s not the crux of anything I’ve said – or what any normal person has said or would say. Some of these people have wished serious personal harm upon those (or their families) that brought it about.

There’s something seriously wrong with that.

And further, anyone that puts so much effort into a virtual community (or forums, whatever) and makes that their ‘world’ really could stand to get outside more often.

When it call comes down to it, it’s pixels.

Nothing more.

It could be worse, it could be about Trammel

Personally, I believe the CU was nothing more than a precurser to getting the game ready for the NGE. The NGE WAS the Combat Upgrade, it was just done in two parts.

JTL proved in large part that twitch style aiming and combat could work for SWG.

In short, it was a sham.

The original combat balance docs were trashed, thus the NGE was born (albiet under a different name).

Think about it…Really sit back and look at what the CU brought to the table then tell me you don’t reach the same conclusion.

But we’ll never know because everyone hides behind an NDA.

The story is what fascinates me. I could care two cents about playing PRECU, CU, or NGE.

Han Solo Shot First!!

sorry, it had to be said.

What SOE and Lucas Arts did with the “new game enhancemtns” is destroy any brand recognition they had.

Even though the “nge” is a stale topic that many would rather not hear it is a valid one that deserves discussion to prevent future mistakes; like the Nazi’s during WWII. History is taught for a reason so let us not forget the mistake made before us.

While I’m confident there’s many good people behind the scenes who have taken the fall for the “nge” there’s no amount of “greatness” which can remove the wronging of the customer base. There’s never been an apology but only half given admitions to mistakes.

To this day I refuse to -purchase- anything with a “Sony” lable on it, as well with “Lucas Arts”. I am also extremely hesitant to directly associate with any products which are developed, or in developemnt, by the same people who were responsible for the end product known as the “new game enhancements”; sorry Jeff and Julio.

People seem upset over this NGE thing.

It is just a game.

MMOs aren’t meant as a substitute to your real, living, breathing world.

And if they ARE your substitute for your real, living, breathing world, then you have some severe issues past (real or imagined) slights by MMO developers that desperately need to be addressed.

I quit because of the NGE…

I feel very strongly that when a company keeps something a secret until charging customer’s credit cards for a new expansion which advertised items for classes that were being removed from the game (Creature Handler Necklace for instance) it is more than bad customer service – it is unconscionable.

I feel very strongly that when a company forces an ‘update’ down the community’s collective throats just because it had a specified “ship date” and not because it was finished – that is wrong. The game itself was released it seems merely to create a revenue stream to fund development.

I am very passionate about the fact that games such as World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online spent intensive time in development – World of Warcraft was even pushed back year after year by Blizzard because it wasn’t yet finished. Some companies seem to care about quality and releasing a product that makes its customers happy as opposed to angry. Love or hate WoW – it is polished and complete.

Now 4 years post-release, I can still be shot through walls/floors by NPCs and cannot shoot back in SWG. I can still fall through world geometry, and I can find myself getting pummeled to death by cavemen with sticks while I am wielding a lightsaber. I can watch mobs stack on top of each other and they can all attack you but you can’t attack them individually. I look at all of the above – and I am told that it is ‘working as intended’ to make things more ‘Star Warsy.’

Very real concerns that were raised by players are brushed away because the higher ups do not care about the customers as you allege. John Smedley posted that he wanted to hear what we thought of the NGE when it was first release. A look at his profile revealed that he never bothered to log in again to check for replies to his message for at least the two months that I watched.

People who are still playing are funding a beta test in progress. The least SOE could have done would have been to scrap and take the time to finish the game instead of breaking things every patch. But hey – at least Smugglers can now smuggle (4 years post ship date). Next thing you know Jedi will be able to use the force!

Unfortunately this topic is not so much about what really happened but mostly about basic human nature. Prior to the NGE there were differences in views but the player base (although complaining like in every game) was alongside the game developers when it came to core of most things. The NGE on many levels was a breach of trust – real or imagined – on an unprecedented scale in that kind of relationship.

From that point on it transformed into a war of ideology between part of the player base and SOE and like all wars people thought and still think that they are right to promote their side. Whether it’s a war with guns or a war with words, few ever embark with the concept that they are the bad guys.

So overall I am sorry that you are caught in this war Raph and I fear that it will not end. If it’s any consolation then you should know that personally I find this blog to be very insightful in many different topics and that it humanizes you a lot. I’m definitely not condoning what is happening but I would not expect it to end if I were you. Humans have yet to learn to let go

I know it doesn’t take much out of a person to post a rant on the Internet, but still — that someone can draw a parallel between JFK’s assassination and the NGE demonstrates a massive lack of perspective.

This passionate hatred of an event almost two years ago is unhealthy. NGE-haters don’t need to forgive, but they sure need to heal. And they need to find that healing within themselves because there’s nothing that SOE/LucasArts could ever do that would erase the NGE.

It’s called acceptance.

(sigh)

I wish Ben were here.

@ Just a bystander:
You might be right with devs having a “god-complex”, but I don’t think the devs decide what makes it into the game in the end…

@Dr. Reality Check:
As I said on the swg forums back in the days:

“It’s not just a game, it’s a world to live in!

I think the reason everyone is bringing up the NGE every once in a while is because they (including me) feel betrayed. We worked our butts off to achieve what we did ingame and suddenly everything was changed.
We had/made friends ingame and had a community ripped apart from one day to another.

An example of how deep the fear of this happening again is sitting is my former swg guild:

We all went to play Vanguard. On the day SOE announced they took over Vanguard all of them (about 20 people) cancelled their accounts and left the game. Only my brother and me stayed in the game and we are thinking to leave as well.

We just don’t want to take the risk of investing another 2.5 years in a game that completely changes into something totally different.

I just didn’t want to perpetuate the discussion.

Which is why you wrote a long blog entry and linked the article…

SWG/NGE will perpetuate itself whenever Sony make game-breaking changes in future games. I can see why players want to educated future designers with short to-the-point articles like the one linked.

THIS is your player-democracy at work, Raph.

I’m a Reds fan. I got screwed more than anyone in 1981, since my team had the best record in all of baseball, yet didn’t make the playoffs

But your analogy falls because in 1982, when the game resumed with a non strike season, there were still 9 players on the field, the pitcher’s mound was still 60′ 6″ from the plate, there were 3 strikes, 3 outs, 9 innings, etc etc etc. Anyone who loved baseball who didn’t come back after 1981 or the more disastrous 1994 strike DO need to get a life. Because their game and pastime STILL exist.

That is NOT the case with SWG.

The NGE is to Pre-NGE what kickball is to Major League Baseball. It’s vaguely similar but not at all the same game.

SWG wasn’t a game. It was a pastime.

Is baseball still the most popular sport?

Nope, football’s TV ratings are higher.

However, baseball draws more fans per season (the longest season of any sport with the most games) than any other sport.

Football teams with pack in 70,000 fans a game… For 16 games. Baseball teams will pack in 25,000 fans a game… For 162 games…

Baseball is a far more complex game than football. It requires lots of specialized skills. It sometimes is slow. It sometimes resembles a chess match more than a contact sport. To master the act of hitting a baseball is probably the most difficult feat in all of sport, to the tune that someone who fails to do it 70% of the time is a Hall of Famer. It’s the only sport where the DEFENSE holds the ball. It’s the most balanced sport, in that both teams have the same number of chances to go on offense.

What if one day, to compete with football’s ratings, baseball changed the game drastically overnight, removing long loved roles and replacing gameplay with “fast action basebally and iconic” rules. Such as there being only one strike, so that an at bat is resolved within a couple pitches. Or in replacing the ball with a beach ball so that it’s way easier to hit?

The focus group, after all, said that people wanted to see more hits and more action.

Who cares if that 25,000 fans per ballpark, per game, 162 times a year the day after the “New Game Experience” is released falls to 2,000, they will soon be drawing 70,000 a game and higher TV ratings than ever, right?

Dr. Reality Check

Your perceptions of the (former) player base of SWG was a part of the problem. Your sterotypical view of basement dwelling, cheetos eating, jolt cola swilling, pocket protector wearing nerds playing a video game may apply to some. But most of the people that I have met through this game were and are establish adult professionals, with families and a LIFE. Many, like me, used SWG as an escape from the everyday so that we could relive our youth and our fastasy of being in the glaxay that Lucas created.

I believe your view was similar to those that made the decision to implement the NGE. They failed to realize that we are savy consumers in the connected age and we flexed and continue to flex our muscle and influence. We will continue to do so because we were wronged. I don’t care if you do not appreciate that we were wronged in a pretend world, but we were wronged nonetheless. And if you think “get over it” will placate the cabal, you are sorely mistaken.

To Raph:

Tired of discussing or reading about it but make a blog about it anyway?

*boggle*

Okie dokie…………………….

Anyway….

It’s worth talking about today and tomorrow because it keeps the mistakes made in the forefront of the minds of arrogant developers. Yes, you’re all arrogant, and all have a God complex. You guys can bristle at that notion and say “I’m not arrogant and I certainly don’t have a God complex”, but the rockstar mentality of being worshipped by hundreds of thousands of nerds (including myself) generally causes ones head to expand. You all believe YOU’RE right and all the players are wrong, and YOUR design document that you’ve been working on since your MUD / DnD days is the one holy grail of design documents.

There are important lessons to be taught, retaught, learned, and relearned from SWG (all versions of it: PRECU, CU, NGE, Current) for developers. And it’s a good thing to have the most collasal failure of all MMOs to brought back to the forefront as a testament of what NOT to do; how not to run a game; how NOT to treat your players with arrogant indignation.

The history of it is fascinating, it’s hard to argue that point. It’s been a trainwreck from the beginning, and it’s been awfully hard not to watch.

To anyone else still wanting an apology:

First, you won’t get it (See point about arrogance).

Second, what good would it do? Would you suddenly forgive SOE for stomping a hole in your heart? Would you go running back to the girlfriend that has abused, lied, and cheated to you multiple times over the last couple of years? Would you suddenly re-up and start playing again – to be the player who posts rather than posters who play (another shining gold star in the SOE cap)? An apology would do nothing but give you MORE ammunition to use against SOE and the people associated with it from beginning to end in more forum fodder and blog posts (SEE!!!! I WAS RIGHT!!!111!!!!ONE!!!! U WERE RONG!!!!).

But anyway. There are still lessons that need to be learned and relearned from it. If there was no such thing as the Star Wars mystique and it was just…Blasters and Laser Swords Online…noone would care. It would have likely never have made it past month 6. But it WAS/IS Star Wars – THE single most recognizable IP in the WORLD. There should be NO competition for a Star Wars MMO. None. Anybody and everybody has heard of Star Wars.

And SOE, and you, blew it.

Quite honestly Raph, I think we are all burned out, most of us would like nothing more than to move past this and go forward. But as stated by myself and many others, we need some sort of closure.

The sad thing is, had they just open classic servers in the first place, all of this animosity and frustration would have been avoided. Had SOE/LA come out and said “SWG is currently bleeding subscriptions, we are unable to keep up with the demands of our customers, and we feel we can do better by make some major changes to the core game.” Then offered classic servers and developed a working fully tested “NGE”, I think most of us would have understood.

There are some very intelligent, business savvy people among us that can appreciate the position that SWG may have been in at the time. Although disappointed that SWG would see no more development attention, at least we still would have had the game we wanted, and possibly could have helped promote the new game and express ideas to aide the development.

One of the major mistakes that SOE/LA made was not leaveraging the expertise and brilliants of its own playerbase.

I think it’s as simple as already expressed…

Without knowing how/why it happened there is no way to know whether it will happen again.

PC’s are a huge investment. We all know that our PC’s can be taken away or nerfed or otherwise ruined at anytime but we expect our PC’s to be there as they were the day before.
If a game is constantly changing the rules or can otherwise not be trusted then that’s a game that will not get many serious players.

Anyway, that’s how I see the issue. I just want to know how/why it happened so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again in any new game I have become passionate about.

I agree with Raph on being tired of hearing of the NGE, but I also agree with the posters of “it will always haunt them”.

If Smed and all the other guys are such good people and they *admit* the NGE was such a big mistake…..
….why is there still no Pre-CU server back online? Not even a single one?
Just to show they listen to their community as they pretend they do.
Shouldn’t be so hard to do!
And would probably give them back some reputation as well.

We had a bit of a debate on RLMMO about how this intense hatred has lead to personal attacks on fellow members who don’t up the Sony Hate ante’. My view is that we are now beating a dead horse. We are that first date who can’t do anything all night but talk about the ex. It truly has become unhealthy. It was however productive, even if it is no longer so. Mistakes were made and laws were broken. LA, SOE and those involved have received a fitting reputation and the companies lost revenue.

The real reason the dead horse won’t stop getting itself beaten is the lack of closure. As Raph stated, the public simply doesn’t know the whole story. We are left to speculate about the whos and whats without ever truly knowing. It’s the cover up that prompts all to put on their tinfoil hats and continue the discussions.

My feeling is the best way to achieve closure is for a book to be written about this scandal. I am not directing this to Raph or anyone in particular, just putting this out there. The book can provide closure in two ways – first it allows all to know what truly happened. Second, it allows justice to be done, although not the type of justice people confuse with revenge. It would allow some good to come from a wrong; some lessons to be learned so future wrongs are not repeated.

The book should be more academic in nature, more like a textbook of what not to do. It can start off from the point of an overly ambitious game design that did not fit the budget at hand, to an early and incomplete release, lack of development tools that cause many a missed deadline, through the first failed revamp and the release of Gordon Walton. The NGE would need special attention, as Raph stated there were many lessons to be learned that the public simply don’t focus on, like a chapter on Data Mining, When Focus Groups are Wrong. Just because a great newbie space station was built and people enjoy it, doesn’t mean that translates well, if at all, to the whole of the game. The expansion that was release just before the NGE should be another focal point. It’s marketing, timing and why complaints to the FTC had to be filled before a refund was given are great topics for people getting an MBA. Planning is key, or more to the point, having a plan is key.

I can see why such information will never be out there. The confidentiality agreements are in place to protect people’s careers as much as to not give fodder to lawsuits. However if the individuals involved can show a track record of advoidance of such mistakes I can’t help but to feel their careers will be benefited by such a book.

I feel that is what is truly needed here, disclosure and justice, though most would settle for a revamped and fully fixed version of preCU. Then all of this negativity will simply go away. This dead horse beating may be productive after all, to some degree, though most have moved on. For the rest something more is needed.

I won’t post anything more than what others have posted, and I respect you Raph…

But saying the nge was an error, and actually saying they were sorry they screwed over their players are two different things.

If I screwed around on my wife and told her it was an “error”, well, you can paint the picture.

They’ve never done anything to make this up to the players they turned away. They have never even given us the “sorry, my bad” wave you give someone when you cut them off in traffic.

They’ve done nothing to apologise. NOTHING.

the story is going to stay unavailable because of confidentiality agreements.

Quite frankly, that right there is probably 90% of why the problem isn’t going away. In lieu of the facts, rumors will do for most.

How do you fight ignorance? The truth is a good start. Nobody can stop the masses that come to string you up, who will refuse to change their mind in the face of full disclosure and honesty, even admitting where you went wrong. Trying to fight that attitude with silence only leads to their voices being the only ones present. You’ll never get an open, constructive dialogue by refusing any reasonable efforts to do so because of what unreasonable people ‘might do’.

Without any opportunity to engage in a discussion of where things went bad, how it happened, and most importantly how to make sure it doesn’t happen again, those who feel victimized don’t have anyplace constructive to turn their energies. All we have is postulated rumors, snippets of information, corporate-speak cryptic remarks, and the like. There is no platform for real discussion on this issue publicly, so I’m not exactly shocked that the only discussion that does take place is emotional, negative, and very jaded. I think the reason for that, at least in part, is that you can resonate with others who either experienced it too, or are sympathetic (or at least empathetic) to your experience. Trying to engage in a constructive dialogue on the matter is like talking to the wind, either you get the people who want a witch-hunt on one side or absolute silence on the either.

I think the concept I’m looking for here is ‘validated’. The best companies I have worked for in my life have stated policies that the very first thing you do with an angry customer is validate their concerns. If you bristle up, refuse to communicate, or tell them their situation isn’t important to you, the conflict grows into a battle of wills and egos. The percieved wrongdoing, how to avoid it in the future, to learn lessons, incorporate them into your operations, to grow and improve….all that gets left behind. Validating the customer, with the exception of those who are displaying immature irateness or are seeking discounts for inane issues (you don’t have Jergen’s lotion in your bathroom, I want free movie tickets!…and yes, I’ve had those exact words said to me), immediately disarms most people. Even those who ‘want a fight’, or are just waiting to be ‘kicked in the teeth’ when presented with an opportunity to move from disonance to resolution, will do so. In a lot of cases, you’ve not only addressed and resolved, but you’ve gone way over their (admittedly very low) expectations and impressed them enough to go tell their friends. There’s the old business adage ’9 out of 10 dissatisfied customers tell 7 out of 10 of their friends about you; 1 out of 10 satisfied customers will tell 3 out of 10 of their friends about you…’ so you see, bad word of mouth kills you quick, building a reputation takes work, but the final bit ‘…every customer who has a bad experience that is addressed fully, fairly, and recieves the highest level of attention and care will tell someone about it’ is the most important. Everyone knows mistakes get made, but if they hear about a company that admits when it is wrong and has employees willing to make selfless efforts to make it up to you, that speaks volumes.

Plus there’s the occasional confused look on a person’s face when you say ‘you’re right’, its priceless :9.

Confidentiality agreements are for protecting against rival companies and provide legal means to punish people who might try to sell your interests out. They should not be used as a blanket defense against customers who want to understand how such a series of events got put into motion. Your customers have invested in your product, they have a right to know why it blew up in their face.

Car company X produces vehicles which randomly catch fire/explode/flip over/etc. When questioned on how such a product made it to market, putting customers’ lives in danger, the company would rather not comment. Okay, nobody died from the NGE, fair enough, but my illustration was made to question just how far does confidentiality go.

Can you blame someone for being upset that the expansion released not weeks prior to the change featured very desireable rewards for professions that were entirely removed from gameplay? Is anyone suprised that theories of unlawful business practices would get floated when something like that happens? If nothing illegal or unlawful was intended, if it was a gigantic mistake, why remain silent on it?

Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. Hard to study when all the facts are behind locked doors.

Basically, unless someone’s ego is at stake, I don’t see any intelligible reason to play the ‘stick my fingers in my ears until they forget about it’ game.

I will say I’ve seen one place where halfway constructive discussions on SWG takes place, and thats on the Firefly MMO forums. However, those mostly consist of ‘How can we make something that fun, immersive, and with the same kind of possiblities again?’. That’s great and I encourage it, but a lot of us just remain weary of the industry as a whole right now because we’ve seen so little discussion on how to keep it from happening again.

As far as the ‘data mining’ bit, I hope that isn’t aluding to the astromech stats on professions played/mastered. I think the oldest justification for disregarding others’ preferences is to devalue/dehumanize them as ‘unworthy of consideration’. The 2% of customers in that demographic that went ignored had the same enjoyment in what they did as the other 98%, and paid the same amount of money to do so. A business that starts believing itself big enough to ignore its customers wishes, even one, is a business that needs an attitude check or is going to fail, very publicly.

In summary, my opinion is: We can’t stop talking about, because technically…we haven’t even started.

I wrote the Escapist article “Blowing Up Galaxies” and provided the pull quotes used in the layouts. If my use of Raph’s words irritated him, that wasn’t my intent and I’m sorry for that irritation, but otherwise I see no reason to apologize. Raph’s words were and are here on his own blog; he hadn’t pulled them; I quoted him, and the others, accurately and in context. That’s not “disingenuous.” Raph, if you don’t want your past statements quoted, remove them.

As for data mining being the “true lesson” of the NGE — well, it might have been nice if Raph had mentioned that when I showed him the article before publication.

The situation with the NGE is triple bizarre to me.

1) SWG is far, far away from Star Wars and ever was. Its the most bizarre version one can ever imagine. Significant lack of content, art and so forth but plenty of necklaces(!) and stuff like that. It even has a newsboy hat on the item list. The developers even seriously considered “gardening” as a future publish. Let’s call that pink design, derived from the pink skyboxes on many planets (worsed.art-direction.ever.)In effect, many players played it because they liked some of the innovation, but mostly because its the only Star Wars MMO (at least in theory).

2) The special design of SWG attracted a niche community which is of course very passionate. The game offered unique social gameplay and especially l33tness-on-demand with the Jedi, which lured plenty of players into the game (replacing the disappointed Star Wars Fans from the earlier community).

3) All sorts of managemend faults, resulted in a game that hardly made any progress. Half-assed revamp followed by another half-assed revamp, while they catered foremost jedi players. Despite a classic trilogy setting, all sorts of exotic, external or prequel-movie stuff was put into the game, watering down what was left from classic star wars. So the earlier community often talked about the “potential” of the game. Which means, the “special community” grows stronger and gains more influence in the boards, the *only* ones who actually love this Star-Wars-Travesty.

The NGE changed especially the gameplay of this “special” community, removing the l33tness by offering Jedi to everyone (and removing FOTM-Templates etc). A lot of complains came due to the fact that existing gameplay was exchanged with something unpolished and bug-infested. While it addressed some logical and game mechanical flaws, it left other major inconsistencies untouched (so that players outside of the die-hard-SWG community remained sceptical).

In essence, a bizarre game tried to hurt those, who were the only ones who actually like its weirdness. I embraced the NGE when I read of it first as I hoped the developers would finally do the obvious (Star Wars Galaxies = Star Wars!?), which turned out to be a halfhearted, unconsidered attempt.

It will remain a mystery, what exactly prevents SWG developers from making something classically star wars.

I… I only wish Ben were here.

I think you are looking at it from an emotional perspective, which is fine, you are loyal to your collegues which bolds well for the type of person you are. I think the article is point out the fact that history repeats itself and as soon as you forget and move on, history repeats itself. Hence never get into a land war in Asia.

Like many posters above, I’m also curious about the data mining comment.

Is it because the other mistakes are too obvious to be meaningfully learned from, or that their lessons simply can’t be learned?

I call BS on you Raph.

The fact that this is still an issue just shows how committed the customers were to that game. I was one of them. I miss the game a lot. You of all people should understand that committed customers are something that a developer should cherish.

I for one am glad that this happened. If and when I find another game that I like as much as I liked SWG, I will be fairly confident that it won’t change like the SWG did. Even if Sony won’t make amends, it may prevent others from making the same mistakes.

If by data mining, you mean knowing your customers, and listening to them, then I agree, that is the biggest part of this story.

i for one think people would let the resentment over the nge die if there was
a good deep sci-fi sandbox game out there to play however there isn’t.
we wait and hope….

I’m thinking that the people at the Escapist just didn’t have enough fresh content for this issue. Detailing the NGE in 2006 would be a conversation with merit. Digging into it now seems more like a I need something for this space and don’t have anything good. Let’s beat on SWG again! move.

There is so much going on in the MMO world right now – at many companies – why not dig into some of that instead of falling back on yet another NGE devilization?

I agree, but find it hard to let go, as many do. There simply isn’t any true closure. Sure, Smed has said it was a mistake, but where’s the recognition of the pain suffered.

Personally, I just wish he would release an apology along the lines of “SOE, and I, deeply regret the pain & perceived betrayal our implementation of the NGE has caused. Although we felt we were doing the right thing at the time, we regret the manner in which we did it, and sincerely apologize to our present & former customers. Unfortunatly, we can not bring back the former SWG, but will continue to improve the NGE in an effort to bring in new & former players.” Then we could bury this and many of us could move forward.

Smed may have felt he’s made amends, but he needs to take a moment and consider the benefits all would gain from the clear closure of an apology. Heck, he may even get back a few subs…

That said, until you make us a game Raph, we’ll still be standing on your lawn…

Well posted Raph. I agree with you wholeheartedly. It must be very frustrating to watch people rant so passionately without having the full story. And it must be more frustrating to not be able to share said story. Kudos for speaking out.

The players that left because of the NGE still feel so betrayed, hurt, insulted, and burned; they can’t let go of it yet. Maybe some of them never will. Some of them may flood this post with well-researched, detailed comments explaining why SOE/NGE/Smed/whoever/whatever is the devil. Telling them that Smed has apologized and changes have been made since then is like talking to a wall, but I completely sympathize with those players nonetheless. I see your point though, and admit I’m a little tired of it now too.

It does pretty much suck that, even though you refused to comment, the site disingenuously pulled a past quote by you from the archives and spotlighted it in big, bold type on the graphic. But maybe that was the work of the designer or editor. Hopefully they’ll note your displeasure and at least apologize, if not take it off the page completely.

From an uninvolved outsider’s perspective, the article did have some (still) good (if obvious) points.

- Players get invested in ‘their’ game. A property management company may look at a renter as a minor entry in some subledger … but really, it’s a person living in “their” home. So too with games.

- Release quality is critical. Don’t release until it’s ready.

Certainly these are obvious points. Certainly they’ve been proclaimed and written many times (too many times). But from an uninvolved average player’s perspective, there hasn’t been a great deal of evidence that the “industry” gets it.

I also find it interesting that people are still talking about NGE after all this time. It wasn’t the first game to undergo major changes that upset the existing player base (DAoC and ToA?) I think the ongoing discussion has a lot to do with the community that loved SWG.

SWG was (until NGE) the best example of a recent graphical MMO with a definite worldy / sandboxy quality to it. The industry has yet (imo) to deliver a replacement (note: I haven’t yet tried Eve).

the kind that hits every MMORPG

I disagree pretty strongly with this statement. Pre-CU, from what I saw, SWG didn’t have this issue. There was no end-game. There were no level caps (in the class sense of the term). Everyone I knew from back then who quit the game did so because of reasons that typically weren’t even because of the game and I can’t think of a single one who quit because they were just flat out bored with it.

I knew people who had grinded out every single profession, gone to every POI, and attempted every quest. These people STILL didn’t want to quit the game. Sure, you had people burn out on the game, but not in the traditional sense of WoW/EQ/etc burnout where people ended up saying “OK. I’ve done it all.. what now?”

I was one of the guys carrying the pitch fork and torch ready to burn anyone and everyone at the stake. I was pissed at Lucas because even though I didn’t know if it were true or not, I believed they probably put the whole damn thing in motion. I was pissed at SOE for either agreeing it was a good change, or not having the balls to say “no, we’re not gonna do it” (even if it meant sending SWG to another publisher). I was even pissed at the players who STUCK with the damn game.

I believe the articles about the NGE are actually helping SWG, not hurting it further to be honest. I look at those articles and it reminds me of how damn much I loved that game and Raph’s original design of it. I see them trickling things in from the past and it peaks my curiosity. I’ve been pissed and hurt for a long time and a big part of me wants them to just create an SWG 2 with an IMPROVED version of the old system.

I’ve actually started a new account on SWG and have been playing (level 15 now) for a few days. Those articles, although bashing in most senses, actually made me want to try the game again… don’t know if it’s poor etiquette (if so, i can edit or you can remove this bit) but I’m blogging about it at http://precu.wordpress.com.

P.S. Raph, we want you at IMGDC next year!

Speaking as a current and former SWG player (Beta 1, Shuttle 1), I don’t think any flaming is deserved. The NGE was without a doubt a colossal mistake – but it wasn’t any one person’s fault and the parties involved seem to have learned from it.

As I said over on Scott’s blog – well, I’ll cut-n-paste:

There’s still work to be done but it’s night and day from where we were a year ago, when most of us were quitting or taking long breaks. Now the challenge in front of the dev team is to follow through on the positive momentum they’ve created. While there’s a few more of the “old-style” systems that players would really like to see come back, they also need to start seriously churning out new content. To provide an example of why, lately we’ve had something happen that hasn’t really happened since the game launched: players are leaving because of general endgame burnout. Not because some change happened that they’re upset about, but more because they “just felt like they’d done everything there was to do”. It was kind of a shocker for most of the player community to finally realize we were losing people to normal churn, the kind that hits every MMORPG, instead of just because of the latest patch or dev stupidity. That means now the team has to focus on fighting that churn if they want the game to continue though.

Personally I think the game is almost ready for a re-launch, probably with a new blockbuster expansion. If it were me making the call I would have the team make a kick-ass expansion based on Empire Strikes Back because no Star Wars fan can really ignore that tie-in. Besides, the game doesn’t have a snow planet right now