SOE hate

[Righ]

God forbid there is EVER a class action lawsuit filed against any of the big MMOG developers that actually reaches court.

God forbid there are any lawsuits. There are stupid lawsuits filed and even won all the time. It's going to happen. But the hyperbole about the end of all games as we know it is stunningly misplaced. Bad shit happens to companies that operate in immature markets where the risks are poorly understood. You file bankruptcy, spin off your subsiduary and let that take the heat, or whatever it takes. You spend a bunch of cash on some new-fangled insurance that was dreamed up the minute you got bitten, and get back to work. You charge the fucking walking wallets for your increased costs, and they mutter and yet pay it. It's the American way.

[SnakeCharmer]

If it is in fact found to be a different product, then it can be classified as a bait and switch, which is actionable under consumer law in many states.

Rather than comment on something I'm not really capable or qualified to comment on (that is, Star Wars Galaxies in general, as I do not currently work on the project, nor have I in the past), I'll comment on what exactly scares the piss out of me every time I read the above statement (and believe me, I've seen variations of that statement for years now)...

Oh what a pickle this entire genre of gaming would be in if such a thing were to come to pass. It's not the implications that my company could be harmed from such a situation that scares me, it's the fact that if changing a game were actionable, massively multiplayer games would die out entirely. Think about it. We put these things out the door and update them constantly because the player-base demands it.

Changes would never be made if we could simply release a game and let it sit, surviving by the very nature of its existence. If we didn't change MMOGs after release, they would survive for a brief period of time before fizzling out and amount to massive wastes of development money (these things cost tens of millions of dollars these days, and don't start turning a profit for years after their release in most cases).

If a lawsuit of this nature were ever filed and fulfilled, development studios would put the kibosh on changing the games at all, would never make a new MMOG, and we would all (developers and players alike) have to watch a genre die out before it even hit puberty.

Hello.  I'm reality.  Have we met?

The "bait and switch" isnt about the change to the game, per se - new game experience be damned.

It was the fact that they (you? since you are an employee of SOE) touted the expanision at a cost of 30 dollars for several months as a preorder then ONE day after it went live, announced a change to the very CORE of the game (i.e. - combat and classes) and subsequently making half the classes simply...disappear...and making approx 60 percent of the content rewards in said expansion worthless (real or imagined).  The whole thing screamed "heh, we got your money now motherfuckers, what are you going to do?".  Then when SOE legal department got a hold of this, they said "whoa...this isnt right - legally or morally" (I know, legal department -possibly- standing up for something morally wrong). 

Simply put:  If there wasnt a legal precedent to be set - bait and switch on goods the player does not technically own - why offer the refund?  Out of the goodness of SOE's hearts?   Right.  A little late for that.  SOE has screwed its customers for YEARS - why would THIS be any different?

Look, I'll conceed that as a player, my sub fee gives me the right to play the game, nothing more.  In the end, I have no real vested interest in the game, other than my time spent - and the only thing I technically own is the box and disks the game came in/on...  BUT, being the provider of said right, doesnt give you the right to yank the virtual carpet out from under me.  Sooner or later, a class action IS going to happen, especially in the society we live in, and someone is going to lose BIG.  Our society is the reason I cant get a hot cup of coffee at a McDonalds drive thru anymore. 

Yes, its my first post after several months of lurking.  Sue me  :-D 

[Arthur_Parker]

I wonder if anyone will ever release a mmorpg and say, that's it, this is version 1.0 and we will not change it apart from fixing major bugs and optimising the code.  Stealth will work the way it does now until the servers close, we will not up the exp grind etc.

6, 12 months, or whenever, later when an expansion is needed they sell the expansion as version 2.0 of the game, they bring up new servers, allow people to transfer their characters over from 1.0 to 2.0 servers.  If people don't like version 2.0 they have 90 days to transfer their characters back to version 1.0 servers.

As the population moves to 2.0 servers, merge the 1.0 servers to keep a reasonable ingame population and use the hardware freed up for the new 2.0 servers.  Never stop the 1.0 version of the game, as you are not making major code changes both versions of the game should be easier to support and if anyone really doesn't like your new changes they can just continue to play the game they originally bought.  It would require some more investment in hardware during expansion releases but I think it would really cut down on the number of customers who cancel, just because you changed something stupid.

[schild]

Y'all put alot of time into this site, if you'd like to take it to a place that is less-hate/more-gush that's your call.  It's gonna be a tough balancing act cause your constituency might not be ready to move to a kinder, gentler f13. Get used to hearing 'sell out' from folks that would just like to continue bitching about anything and everything and not be bothered with the bigger picture.  People hate change.

Didn't say that, I'm just going to be less willing to lash out at the online gaming industry for their daily fuckups. It's not worth the effort anymore. Everything else is still fair game.

[heck]

Y'all put alot of time into this site, if you'd like to take it to a place that is less-hate/more-gush that's your call.  It's gonna be a tough balancing act cause your constituency might not be ready to move to a kinder, gentler f13. Get used to hearing 'sell out' from folks that would just like to continue bitching about anything and everything and not be bothered with the bigger picture.  People hate change.

Didn't say that, I'm just going to be less willing to lash out at the online gaming industry for their daily fuckups. It's not worth the effort anymore. Everything else is still fair game.

So you think this NGE event is just another daily fuckup of the industry?  See that's kind of weird.  This particular fuckup is the talk of the town, even outside the industry. 

I guess we're going to have to wait for the rapid destruction of the game before everyone is convinced that SOE went too far.  I wonder if we'll ever get to see some real statistics of just how far and fast the subscriptions dropped.

[Signe]

This has gone into the realm of silly now.  Updates to add content is one thing, changing an entire game, right after selling the punters a relatively useless expansion, is another.  If NGE was simply an update to add content or a patch to fix things, there wouldn't have been such a fuore.  The New York Times and other major publications wouldn't have even noticed.  They mostly took their existing customers and tossed them in the rubbish bin. 

If people have to threaten to sue or file a lawsuit to force SOE or any company, regardless of what sort of product they put out, to do the right thing and return people's money, so be it.  I seriously doubt it'll destroy the MMO industry.  What it might do, however, is make them a bit more careful how they treat people who pay them for a service.  Chances are, however, it won't make a bit of difference and, even if they lose, it'll be business as usual.  If people really do get up in arms about it and some lawyers make goo goo eyes at SOE, I'm sure it'll only take some gentle prodding for people to get refunds on what ever time they have left.  SOE HAS to know what they did was completely unethical. 

[schild]

Y'all put alot of time into this site, if you'd like to take it to a place that is less-hate/more-gush that's your call.  It's gonna be a tough balancing act cause your constituency might not be ready to move to a kinder, gentler f13. Get used to hearing 'sell out' from folks that would just like to continue bitching about anything and everything and not be bothered with the bigger picture.  People hate change.

Didn't say that, I'm just going to be less willing to lash out at the online gaming industry for their daily fuckups. It's not worth the effort anymore. Everything else is still fair game.

So you think this NGE event is just another daily fuckup of the industry?  See that's kind of weird.  This particular fuckup is the talk of the town, even outside the industry. 

I guess we're going to have to wait for the rapid destruction of the game before everyone is convinced that SOE went too far.  I wonder if we'll ever get to see some real statistics of just how far and fast the subscriptions dropped.

Actually I think realeasing Trials of Obi-Wan at all was the fuckup part. And I'm fairly confident they see the error in that.

[heck]

Y'all put alot of time into this site, if you'd like to take it to a place that is less-hate/more-gush that's your call.  It's gonna be a tough balancing act cause your constituency might not be ready to move to a kinder, gentler f13. Get used to hearing 'sell out' from folks that would just like to continue bitching about anything and everything and not be bothered with the bigger picture.  People hate change.

Didn't say that, I'm just going to be less willing to lash out at the online gaming industry for their daily fuckups. It's not worth the effort anymore. Everything else is still fair game.

So you think this NGE event is just another daily fuckup of the industry?  See that's kind of weird.  This particular fuckup is the talk of the town, even outside the industry. 

I guess we're going to have to wait for the rapid destruction of the game before everyone is convinced that SOE went too far.  I wonder if we'll ever get to see some real statistics of just how far and fast the subscriptions dropped.

Actually I think realeasing Trials of Obi-Wan at all was the fuckup part. And I'm fairly confident they see the error in that.

Fair enough.  But even if TOOW never happened, what about the extremely sudden revelation and implementation of complete overhaul?  Like, this is now a new game entirely.  Years of stringing along player correspondents and players alike, only to have been "developing" a new game behind everyone's back.  Then inviting a handful of people [wtf was the critera] to test and approve this new game, which promised most of its strong points (collision detection etc) a mere six months after its hasty implementation, as if people would seriously wait 6 months for a game that maybe would work on some level?  No matter how much the old SWG sucked, no matter how good the new game looks on paper, they could've done much better by including the existing player base (yea, those idiots) in the process of change.  People fucking pay to beta test, and they slept on that.  Two weeks isn't a beta test period.  All this and more, and TOOW did happen.  And it did take them some time to backtrack and offer refunds.

A line was crossed here.  The industry may suck, games suck, developers suck, players suck...but a line was crossed.  Many people believe that, and I guess many don't.  All we can do is wait and watch.

And this is probably the deadest horse I've ever beaten  :mrgreen:

[Simond]

Here's an idea: Maybe, just maybe, if SOE stopped doing things to make people hate them then the justified hate would disappear.

Of course, every publisher/developer/etc. is going to get 'OMG you sux' posts once in a while from the internet equivelent of the people who write letters in green ink and send them into newspapers, but that's just background radiation (so to speak) and expected. Having the NYT (etc) reporting on an upset playerbase is not.

[schild]

When I was at SOE I used this phrase with a number of the developers.

"Yes, this will be a shitstorm the likes of which has never been seen."

I can't say I didn't warn them. But then I didn't think people would despise the changes this much.

[Hoax]

There have been several very smart things said in this thread here are my highlights for those that missed them.  I wont quote because I forget who said what and I dont have that kind of time on my hands for anything but AV rep farming.

-This was a breach of the imagined social/moral contract between MMO gamers and the devs.  Sure you nerf/buff things, add new items, content et all but you dont REMAKE the game in the middle of its life cycle.  You just dont, nobody could have seen this comming.  The fact that this happened with little warning, almost no testing and was bugged to hell and back is just a symptom of SOE being at the wheels.

-MMO's being sued for content changes would destroy the industry in a hurry, thinking otherwise makes you a moron on par with the morons who have been paying for SWG from launch till now.  I mean seriously, I never even played the game but I know smugglers never even worked wtf is wrong with you people.

-The NGE fiasco will hurt SOE, their image has been so steeped in shit at this point that I would be fucking absolutely amazed if they can get their hands on established IP again.  This fucking thing has been mentioned in the SF Chron, NYtimes, WIRED and who knows where else.  When they have to put the rabid dog that is SWG out of its misery hopefully (cosmic justice 4tw!) it will be the end of SOE as a MMO dev.

-The NGE was a good idea, is a good idea, games with less suck should never be something we direct the hate at.  Barely, Schild is quite logical when he says that SOE making SWG into a less shitty game is a good thing.  He wants to pretend he is jaded but Haemish smelled this out right away (being the jaded fucker he is) and said "they will break this like we have never seen a game broken before" or something to that effect.  Innovation is hard, blahblah...

In closing good times, enough so that I had to break my promise to retire, perhaps at 1000 then?

[Venkman]

Since obviously that 35 page monster has been replaced by this growing one, I'll ask here:

Has anyone wondered if perhaps parts of SOE themselves, as in, the folks running the pre-NGE show, were not aware of the pending NGE? I gotta imagine I'm not the first one. If that horse is already beaten, lemme know.

[Numtini]

Has anyone wondered if perhaps parts of SOE themselves, as in, the folks running the pre-NGE show, were not aware of the pending NGE? I gotta imagine I'm not the first one. If that horse is already beaten, lemme know.

That was my assumption, I figured some junior level twit cornered the LA rep on his or her infrequent slumming in the SOE offices and sold it in a hallway and a month later it was live and a disaster.

[SnakeCharmer]

Since obviously that 35 page monster has been replaced by this growing one, I'll ask here:

Has anyone wondered if perhaps parts of SOE themselves, as in, the folks running the pre-NGE show, were not aware of the pending NGE? I gotta imagine I'm not the first one. If that horse is already beaten, lemme know.

I would say they were aware of it, but to the extent...Who knows.  People talk.  People overhear these convos as they walk by.  It was posted in the Jedi forums approx 4 months ago a pretty broad generalization of the changes but no specifics (thread has been deleted, of course - but not until it reached about 8 pages).  

But it was close enough (damned close) to what is now live.  

My personal opinion is that it was started about 3 months before the CU went to live.  The CU in and of itself did very little to change the game.  It removed the inability to use class specific specials with class specific weapons.  It removed the Combat Queue, so that instead of setting up 10 attacks in a queue, one could only set 2 attacks.  Introduced new weapons, new armor (hardly profession balancing).  Removed some attacks that never worked, added new attacks that were broken.  Added a level modifier on top of a skill based system.  Too much was removed in the CU that doesnt apply to NGE.  And, after the CU hit live, fixes moved at a snails pace - which is to say, few and far between.  Three months ago, people that knew how to read the .tre files found the new stuff for Jedi in there (Vapaad focus skill, for instance, and the 7 types of lightsaber combat), which made people think Jedi was a revamp - again.  

You just cant sneak that stuff in, especially when it shows up in the freaking .tre files 3-4 months prior to.  

[SnakeCharmer]

Has anyone wondered if perhaps parts of SOE themselves, as in, the folks running the pre-NGE show, were not aware of the pending NGE? I gotta imagine I'm not the first one. If that horse is already beaten, lemme know.

That was my assumption, I figured some junior level twit cornered the LA rep on his or her infrequent slumming in the SOE offices and sold it in a hallway and a month later it was live and a disaster.

That would be Jeff Freeman.  His blog entry "Shenanigans" has been posted here, but for the hell of it, I'll recopy it here.  BTW, its been since pulled off his blog due to the uproar it caused...

Shenanigans

SWG was my first job in the game industry. I had played UO for a couple of years or so and knew Raph Koster in that internet sort of way: everyone that visited or posted on any message board anywhere on the internet knew Raph Koster.

Played EQ to level 35, got killed by the same frickin' sand giant three times in a row trying to recover my corpse two weeks after a bug caused me to lose all my gear before EQ CS had the tech to undelete items and man that was it for me.

So I made a "grey shard" using POL (written by Eric Swanson, who also works at SOE now – how weird is that?) and did that for a few years.

Those were Good Times. Friday I'd post a "Wishlist" thread and people would reply with a hundred things they wanted added to the game. And Saturday and Sunday I'd add hundreds of things to the game. Production on a single small server is pretty nice. None of this "Oh, that'll take 2 months to deliver and will require two programmers, a designer and three artists."

A lot of .broadcast "Hey everyone, brace yourselves, I'm going to replace the magic system in 3…2…1"-sorts of moments. Frequently doing development on the server that people were actually playing on, while they are playing on it, and only using a local server for really significant changes.

In terms of administration, the people were a lot harder to manage than the game. Not just the players either, but the co-admin's: the folk that hosted the server, gm "staff", and whatnot. Janey emailed Raph describing a pretty ugly situation, and he'd responded with just some no-nonsense advice on how-to-run-a-mud, which she forwarded to me, and to which I replied, directly to him.

That led directly to establishing, in writing, just what exactly the scope of everyone's responsibilities were, what the rules were, how they would be enforced, and so on. Simple stuff, right? We had none of that and, duh, we ran into a lot of problems 'til we did.

This had nothing to do with his position in the game industry and everything to do with his experience with MUDs, and my lack of it, and his willingness to share info with a fellow enthusiast. Great learning experience, should I ever run a MUD again: Sony hires professionals to do that stuff.

But it also opened a dialog between the two of us and I s'pose put my crazyass game design ideas on his radar.

Anyway, hadn't talked to Raph in a while (because, well, things had been running pretty smoothly) so one day I emailed him and asked how he'd been. He said if I sent him a resume then he could tell me what he was working on.

So I sent him a resume. And they flew me down to Austin to meet the whole SWG team and interview for a systems design position, which I didn't get. Heh.

Couple months later they flew me back again for a worldbuilding position, which I did get.

Within a few months or so I was scripting systems. Then within a couple years, lead content designer for JtL. Then a few months ago, "live lead systems designer". My titles were growing and growing!

As of last week or so, now it's "Lead Game Play Designer". A step backwards in terms of character-count, but not actually a demotion, or even that big a change in responsibilities.

Mind, we have a Creative Director and that isn't me, and a Lead Designer and that isn't me either. They're both my bosses, even though my title's longer. And there's a whole plethora of producers and executives and executive producers above that.

So don't get the crazy notion that I'm "in charge" here. "The Man" is a many-headed beast called Management. I just try to help it make good decisions. With regard to game mechanics, it even lets me decide, sometimes.

So a few months ago The Man comes along and says "What can we do to make this the most fun game it can possibly be?"

It was the lead designer who holed-up in his office for a few days and then said, "Hey, come look at this."

There's no way we can do that.

There's no way we should do that.

Man that's fun.

The Man will never let us get away with doing that.

We can't do it.

We shouldn't do it.

Oh man that is fun.

When an executive producer sees something that is impossible to do, but which is too fun not to do, he makes a noise like "Hoooooooooph".

My job was to be the guy to say, "Yes we can do that." I had to say this about forty times a day for two months. Lead Designer said it too, of course, but no one believed him, because he's crazy. Obviously.

And they would only believe me for a few minutes at a time.

It's frustrating to see the posts about Raph rolling over in his grave, crying himself to sleep, seeing all his design thrown out the window, etc. The notion seems to be that Raph's game is slow-paced, deliberate, social, "worldy", and in no case ever "fun" vs. this change which tosses-out everything Koster-esque about Galaxies. Specifically, that 'removing the Raph' is what makes it fun.

First off, Star Wars Galaxies is already a whole lot of fun for a whole lot of people. And it was very successful.

And Fast Action Combat and the introduction of classes based on iconic Star Wars character archtypes doesn't toss-out everything Koster-esque about Galaxies. Far from it.

The social elements of Galaxies' design remain, and for good reason. MMOs must be MMOs and not just big single-player games that everyone just happens to play all at once. We wouldn't have gotten things like player cities, entertainers and so on without Raph, and I wouldn't want Galaxies to be without them. Simply removing them wouldn't make the game more fun anyway.

There's a lot of cool in Galaxies. We're making all of it easier to see, easier to get to.

Honestly, I doubt I even have the capacity to design a game that is completely un-Raph like. Who do you think taught me this stuff? Over the course of years. Here's how you get X. Here's why you want X.

Yeh, I think I'm good 'nuff to see the 'why' and come up with 'Well if that's why, then we could do Z instead', but at that point it's a quibble over implementation detail, not design philosophy. I don't agree with Raph on every point about every thing, we're pretty much aligned in terms of high level game design.

For example 'Socialization requires downtime' is something Raph might say that I might not agree with. But 'MMO's require socialization, otherwise what's the point?' is not something we'd disagree about.

Many people have been influential in my personal development as a game designer and I've learned an awful lot on my own, but nothing and no other single person comes anywhere close the influence that Raph Koster has had on, in terms of game design from soup-to-nuts, what things I think about, if not in fact what I think about those things.

So I think these sorts of remarks are a little inaccurate, a tiny bit irksome, pretty unfair.[/unquote]

[Simond]

-The NGE fiasco will hurt SOE, their image has been so steeped in shit at this point that I would be fucking absolutely amazed if they can get their hands on established IP again.

Wonder if Warner Bros. is having second thoughts about the DC superhero MMOG license yet?

[Shockeye]

Wonder if Warner Bros. is having second thoughts about the DC superhero MMOG license yet?

The combat from NGE is going into the DC MMOG, so the longer NGE is running the more they can improve things for the DC game.

[cevik]

Reading this thread is like watching an alcoholic bitch about a recovering alcoholic who is always hating on alcohol.

[Shockeye]

Reading this thread is like watching an alcoholic bitch about a recovering alcoholic who is always hating on alcohol.

In other words: everyone needs a drink.

[Righ]

Wonder if Warner Bros. is having second thoughts about the DC superhero MMOG license yet?

That's what I was alluding to when I said:

And that's the interesting part. If I'd handed SOE a bunch of cash to create on online game with my license and was watching the train wreck of SW:G, it would take some pretty impressive talking to keep me from walking away. And if Sony are capable of talking that talk in closed business meeting, then they really ought to make a version for public consumption to quell the rumors.

You can't help but think that these guys are about to bury SW:G to prevent the loss of other licenses.

[Sky]

I'd like to know WHY the sudden SOE love?

I'm saying the same thing schild is:

I didn't say the NGE was the cat's meow. I didn't actually say it was fun. I said it was more fun than what SWG was before

That's it. It's cheap entertainment and more fun than it was when all the spreadsheet people were the cat's meow. That has understandably twisted the panties of many a moisture farmer.

Honestly, the f13 sluts did pique my interest, but further reading (no collision detection, it's not Planetside with wookies) quickly curbed that.

What made me resub to SWG was pretty simple: the moisture farmers quitting (and there is actually a bit of content that got patched in with NGE, so there's something to do).

Wow, I've made variations on this post three times in a row now. But it's pretty entertaining reading the SWG junkie posts. I've helped a couple girls get off H and, while nowhere near as severe, this is reminiscent.

[Ironwood]

If it had been ME that had been flown to SOE, would I be called a sellout?

Yes.  But that's because you don't let your excited show, so I would have assumed that you sold out.  I would have used the term "whore".

With schild, I kept my mouth shut because, well, schild gets excited about things (c.f. PSP).  I got the same feeling that Signe did, but I think the proper thing to accuse schild of is "being a slut".  I don't think he got paid/promised anything, I think Smed and Raph murmured sweet/smart nothings in his ear and next thing you know he's got his skirt over his head.  He came back to f13 with stars in his eyes, not understanding why we don't think Smed is dreamy..

Ding.

[schild]

But Smed and Raph weren't there. In fact, between AGC and the now Raph hasn't so much as mentioned the NGE to me. Let's look at the integral part of my original post:

Once collision detection goes in, this will probably be the game I play. There's actual skill involved now. You can run from people and they can't just autohit you.

I don't know how else to explain it other than SOE has done the right thing. They've revitalized combat in an MMOG. It's a huge step in the right direction. Do I think they'll perfect it here? No. But it's by far the most interesting thing a studio has done. They've taken a gamble, and from what I've seen it's paid off. In other words, they've added the "Wars" back to Star Wars. It's been in the works for over a year now. In fact, the expansions could probably be called smokescreens for the launch of the real game. It'll shake things up.

Okay, ready? I'm going to say this nice and slow.

Once collision detection goes in, this will probably be the game I play.

I don't know how else to explain it other than SOE has done the right thing. They've revitalized combat in an MMOG. It's a huge step in the right direction. Do I think they'll perfect it here? No.

But it's by far the most interesting thing a studio has done. They've taken a gamble, and from what I've seen it's paid off. (admittedly I was wrong here, I didn't take into account Trials of Obiwan existing. Mostly because I really didn't know about it - seriously. I didn't know it was expansive or expensive enough for people to give a fuck about.)

In other words, they've added the "Wars" back to Star Wars. It's been in the works for over a year now. In fact, the expansions could probably be called smokescreens for the launch of the real game. It'll shake things up.

Ok, so at the end of that what do we have? Me saying what they did was some crazy shit and I'll play it in 6 months. Fuck the rest of you for taking the ball and running with it without reading carefully.

Edit: The one thing I can be accused of later is saying that I was going to play immediately. Which I didn't. I couldn't bear to do it without collision detection in, so sue me.

Addendum: I'll still play when collision goes in.

[stray]

Ok, so at the end of that what do we have?

Coupled with the other thread, almost 40 pages, I think.


That being said, I trust that you have no other motive about it than gaming. That's silly.

[Reg]

Wow, I've made variations on this post three times in a row now. But it's pretty entertaining reading the SWG junkie posts. I've helped a couple girls get off H and, while nowhere near as severe, this is reminiscent.

Given that you spent a good two years bitching unmercifully about EQ before finally moving on I think your experience with addiction is a little more direct than that.

[Righ]

Addendum: I'll still play when collision goes in.

Borras will fly in Utupaun Porax-38s before collision detection goes in. I wouldn't count on the game making it to that development milestone.

[schild]

Addendum: I'll still play when collision goes in.

Borras will fly in Utupaun Porax-38s before collision detection goes in. I wouldn't count on the game making it to that development milestone.

Like I said, I'll play when collision detection goes in.

[HaemishM]

Since obviously that 35 page monster has been replaced by this growing one, I'll ask here:

Has anyone wondered if perhaps parts of SOE themselves, as in, the folks running the pre-NGE show, were not aware of the pending NGE? I gotta imagine I'm not the first one. If that horse is already beaten, lemme know.

I believe schild said as much about this when he first brought it up. Even the live team didn't know about it, because it was something like EQgems. Some guy was just fucking around with this in his spare time to see "can we do twitch combat in this MMOG environment?" Lo and behold, it worked.

I still think someone exec somewhere, probably at Lucasarts, heard just the concept, got a boner the size of Georgia and insisted it be implemented ASAP.

[Righ]

Addendum: I'll still play when collision goes in.

Borras will fly in Utupaun Porax-38s before collision detection goes in. I wouldn't count on the game making it to that development milestone.

Like I said, I'll play when collision detection goes in.

The devil is in the details.

[schild]

Addendum: I'll still play when collision goes in.

Borras will fly in Utupaun Porax-38s before collision detection goes in. I wouldn't count on the game making it to that development milestone.

Like I said, I'll play when collision detection goes in.

The devil is in the details.

I chose my words pretty carefully when I wrote about it at first. It's also why it wasn't wordy. Yet, somehow, I was still crucified.  The internet needs an Emotion Engine. Har.

[Soln]

I don't think it's useful to directly or indirectly put blame on someone like Schild for being enthusiastic about general innovation, or being hopeful about an MMORPG innovation.  After all, this is still a volunteer forum, yes?  I never saw any SOE-cheerleading by him, just reporting some interesting news.  That said, I'm not a fan of SOE.  But they don't keep me up at night wringing my hands or foaming at the mouth either.  I just made a long and attempted constructive post a few days ago about what might be useful to consider with SWG.  But frankly who cares?  I'm just some guy rambling on with my own opinions.  But I also resubbed two accounts to SWG and tried playing for a 4-5 weeks in the NGE to honestly give it a try, and there are some positive things at the started levels.  Unfortunately, the game is not to my likeing, so I moved on.  And to cut the bullshit, it's terribly buggy and without CS it's combat is really unappealing.

Ultimately, all I would've liked from SOE for SWG problems, whether it was stability, holocrons, GCW update, Jedi Revamp, CU, and NGE was a little more like this kind of email -- in a word, more consideration of my subscriptions.  They do have a hard job to maintain customer loyalty and keep a distance from over-emotional types, but a little notice with the NGE should've occurred. And I think most people can see that the ongoing hatred over the lack of notice was because it really was a deliberate business decision.  It's gross and is still resonating for people.  Personally, I want to avoid the player vs provider drama, but maybe I'm either jaded about SOE or have come to terms with them and have realistic expectations of what they can provide.  And how they will usually behave.

FWIW, from the 6 months I played EQ2 and visited their forums, Blackguard is a good moderator.  Unfortunately, far better than what went on the Galaxies board.  What people fundamentally can't understand is how there can be such a difference in response and stability between games.  It's that kind of thing that keeps people scratching their heads about SOE. 

[Akkori]

LA is the difference. for the most part. As much as I think SOE screwed the pooch, I firmly believe LA is the guy lathering the KY on the SOE phallus.

[5150]

If it is in fact found to be a different product, then it can be classified as a bait and switch, which is actionable under consumer law in many states.

Rather than comment on something I'm not really capable or qualified to comment on (that is, Star Wars Galaxies in general, as I do not currently work on the project, nor have I in the past), I'll comment on what exactly scares the piss out of me every time I read the above statement (and believe me, I've seen variations of that statement for years now)...

Oh what a pickle this entire genre of gaming would be in if such a thing were to come to pass. It's not the implications that my company could be harmed from such a situation that scares me, it's the fact that if changing a game were actionable, massively multiplayer games would die out entirely. Think about it. We put these things out the door and update them constantly because the player-base demands it.

Changes would never be made if we could simply release a game and let it sit, surviving by the very nature of its existence. If we didn't change MMOGs after release, they would survive for a brief period of time before fizzling out and amount to massive wastes of development money (these things cost tens of millions of dollars these days, and don't start turning a profit for years after their release in most cases).

If a lawsuit of this nature were ever filed and fulfilled, development studios would put the kibosh on changing the games at all, would never make a new MMOG, and we would all (developers and players alike) have to watch a genre die out before it even hit puberty.

Blame the USA for that, fortunately there are other MMORPG developers who aren't based in the US (Eve, AO, Neocron to list 3 - I was hoping that Warhammer Online was going to operate from the UK but it doesn't look like it will)

[cevik]

If a lawsuit of this nature were ever filed and fulfilled, development studios would put the kibosh on changing the games at all, would never make a new MMOG, and we would all (developers and players alike) have to watch a genre die out before it even hit puberty.

Blame the USA for that, fortunately there are other MMORPG developers who aren't based in the US (Eve, AO, Neocron to list 3 - I was hoping that Warhammer Online was going to operate from the UK but it doesn't look like it will)

I agree, those goddamn lawsuits stop everything.  I miss the good old days when McDonalds sold coffee.

[Strazos]

Isn't the change covered the the EULA?