As others have mentioned, your "apology" is nothing more than damage control. It seems a futile attempt to wash away the bad reputation your company has earned before your new fleet of games comes out. After all, you don't want this whole NGE fiasco hurting those game's bottom lines.
There were so many broken promises made from 2003-2005. Your promise now to do better and listen to us, means nothing. We've heard it before many times.
You knowingly and willingly made all the time and effort us players put into SWG, meaningless. Just to cut costs and cater to the trigger happy kids who are playing WoW.
You are not sorry for publishing the NGE. You are not sorry for screwing your loyal customers over. You are only sorry that it didn't work out and you lost so many subscriptions. If the NGE was a huge success, you'd now be all "I told you so" in your interviews.
You destroyed our time investments, our virtual world, our virtual businesses, our hobby, and our communities, all in the name of greater profits. And you only now apologize because you want to shore up your image before your new games come out. Profits taking the forefront once again. I understand you run a business to make money... but you don't make money by discarding your current customers in the hopes you will gain more than you lost.
Hmmm, I wonder what Jim Ward of Lucas Arts thinks of this interview. Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, Lucas Arts and SOE made the decision "hand in hand" to go forward with the NGE. If you really look and read the history of this thing, you will know that both of these companies share the responciblity of the NGE. We have no idea what the contracts for SWG have in them. Here is a thought for you. Blixtev has admitted there is a shut off date for SWG but its years off. What servers are they going to use for the new EQ game?
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base ... There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an option to be part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
I find it hilarious that in your first post, you deride others for their "conspiracy beliefs", then, when I call you out about your defense of an indefnsible fact, you rely on.......dun dun dun....
A wild, CONSPIRACY filled RANT!!!!!
LA did this, numbers I've never seen say that. This guy stopped posting for this, never confirmed, reason.
Blah blah blah.
Well done sir. You win hypocrite of the day honors.
Look, I'm not looking to get into the whole "SOE is a bad company" debate again. Really, I'm not. I just want the Smed/SOE defenders and apologists to take him at his word: that HE is responsible for the NGE. Stop using the "it was LA's fault" argument in future debates, Smed just killed it. There are plenty of other facts/arguments you can use. Just concede this ONE. Is that so hard to ask?
The only problem is, this "apology" doesn't fix the problem. We still have the NGE. If this apology came with an announcement that servers would be reset to Sep 13th (or 14th don't remember exact day) 2005 then the apology would be more meaningful. I would still like to be able to play this game but every time I try I just can't. The game is just unplayable to me. I have honestly tried to come back numerous times since the NGE and I just can't. It is just unplayable to me. I put thousands of hours in this game and had just finished my Jedi temp when the NGE hit and made Jedi a "starter" profession. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach by a GD horse. Even still, I would still come back if they would just fix the GD game mechanics. And a server merge wouldn't hurt either.
Hmmm, I wonder what Jim Ward of Lucas Arts thinks of this interview. Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, Lucas Arts and SOE made the decision "hand in hand" to go forward with the NGE. If you really look and read the history of this thing, you will know that both of these companies share the responciblity of the NGE. We have no idea what the contracts for SWG have in them. Here is a thought for you. Blixtev has admitted there is a shut off date for SWG but its years off. What servers are they going to use for the new EQ game?
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base ... There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an option to be part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
I find it hilarious that in your first post, you deride others for their "conspiracy beliefs", then, when I call you out about your defense of an indefnsible fact, you rely on.......dun dun dun....
A wild, CONSPIRACY filled RANT!!!!!
LA did this, numbers I've never seen say that. This guy stopped posting for this, never confirmed, reason.
Blah blah blah.
Well done sir. You win hypocrite of the day honors.
Look, I'm not looking to get into the whole "SOE is a bad company" debate again. Really, I'm not. I just want the Smed/SOE defenders and apologists to take him at his word: that HE is responsible for the NGE. Stop using the "it was LA's fault" argument in future debates, Smed just killed it. There are plenty of other facts/arguments you can use. Just concede this ONE. Is that so hard to ask?
OK, I get it,
John Smedely took it on his own, in a fit of anger to change Galaxies from a world simulator MMO to multiplayer linear game to teach the SWG community a leason? ... Lucas Arts? ...George? ...the world? ...just you?
Please, explain to me how he took a then recovering MMO(the CU) with a popular IP attached and chose to totally reconstruct it on a whim? He did this against his contract with Lucas Arts (who must approve the Hair on Ewoks) on his own time and dollar.
My rantings... as you define, is a loose account of issues observed with SWG. A lot of that history was conveniently erased when SOE upgraded its forums. However, much of that history is in the blogs of concerned SWG vets.
You have not cared for those vets who did record the events of SWG. Have you ever read subscription numbers on MMOchart.com? Do you even know what a Pre-publish 9 Jedi is? Have you ever read a developer interview? How much of SWG history are you aware of? Who markets and sells Star Wars Galaxies?
I do not hate Smedley or Jim Ward. Without them we would never had Galaxies. You, however, can't have Galaxies with only one of them. We have no idea of the contract between SOE and Lucas Arts for SWG. It would seem that SOE is the speaking company for the brand. It is then John's place to make these statements.
I am a hypocrite for stating events of SWG history, by your account. Its my word that insults you that I defy the acceptance of what you state [to paraphrase] Lucas Arts is blameless.
Where did John Smedely state that "LA is no longer to blame"? Its not in that interview.
Smedley's arch Enemy, ,Jestor blogged about it two days ago at http://blog.myspace.com/lovethatjestor . Its appears that he cut them some slack until he hit page 2.
I find it strangely redeeming that this is actually news worthy on MMORPG. I'm not sure why but I do. I guess it's because today I feel like less of the "vocal minority" and more of the angry majority.
The only good thing about his apology is that it is yet another reason for other developers not to ever do anything like this with their own games. This is one more black mark for the NGE, one more precedent for avoiding such a monumentally stupid decision. Hopefully every other developer heeds this lesson. As for Smedley, I will forgive but will not forget. I won't buy another game developed by or in associate with SOE, but at the same time, it's just a game, so I don't wish him physical harm. I wish him good health, preferably far, far away from the gaming industry.
exactly my words..
I accept your apology mr. smedley, and wish you well, somewhere far far away from the gaming industry...
though you must understand, that I will never ever again buy another game with SOE labled on it..
your apology was the first step, now the next step is to give the swg veterans what you took from them 2 years ago: "pre-cu" I remember a few days after the NGE, how people posted on the swg boards that they were sitting in front of their computer, crying and so on...
but SOE just didnt give a damn and ignored them... that was the worst thing I ever experienced with a gaming company...
Well, I guess it would be for all grown-ups to let the debate now, finally go. Alas, grown-up mentality is rare in gaming forums. Or forums at all. Or humanity at all...
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
You people really need to move on. He has admited he is wrong. What else can he do? bring backold SWG? well thats gonna be partly down to lucas and even if it did come back I seriously doubt it will be a financial success.
Anyway, hopefully now there will be a reduced amount of SWG CU/NGE /crying threads on the home page.
Hmmm, I wonder what Jim Ward of Lucas Arts thinks of this interview. Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, Lucas Arts and SOE made the decision "hand in hand" to go forward with the NGE. If you really look and read the history of this thing, you will know that both of these companies share the responciblity of the NGE. We have no idea what the contracts for SWG have in them. Here is a thought for you. Blixtev has admitted there is a shut off date for SWG but its years off. What servers are they going to use for the new EQ game?
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base ... There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an option to be part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
I find it hilarious that in your first post, you deride others for their "conspiracy beliefs", then, when I call you out about your defense of an indefnsible fact, you rely on.......dun dun dun....
A wild, CONSPIRACY filled RANT!!!!!
LA did this, numbers I've never seen say that. This guy stopped posting for this, never confirmed, reason.
Blah blah blah.
Well done sir. You win hypocrite of the day honors.
Look, I'm not looking to get into the whole "SOE is a bad company" debate again. Really, I'm not. I just want the Smed/SOE defenders and apologists to take him at his word: that HE is responsible for the NGE. Stop using the "it was LA's fault" argument in future debates, Smed just killed it. There are plenty of other facts/arguments you can use. Just concede this ONE. Is that so hard to ask?
OK, I get it,
John Smedely took it on his own, in a fit of anger to change Galaxies from a world simulator MMO to multiplayer linear game to teach the SWG community a leason? ... Lucas Arts? ...George? ...the world? ...just you?
Please, explain to me how he took a then recovering MMO(the CU) with a popular IP attached and chose to totally reconstruct it on a whim? He did this against his contract with Lucas Arts (who must approve the Hair on Ewoks) on his own time and dollar.
My rantings... as you define, is a loose account of issues observed with SWG. A lot of that history was conveniently erased when SOE upgraded its forums. However, much of that history is in the blogs of concerned SWG vets.
You have not cared for those vets who did record the events of SWG. Have you ever read subscription numbers on MMOchart.com? Do you even know what a Pre-publish 9 Jedi is? Have you ever read a developer interview? How much of SWG history are you aware of? Who markets and sells Star Wars Galaxies?
I do not hate Smedley or Jim Ward. Without them we would never had Galaxies. You, however, can't have Galaxies with only one of them. We have no idea of the contract between SOE and Lucas Arts for SWG. It would seem that SOE is the speaking company for the brand. It is then John's place to make these statements.
I am a hypocrite for stating events of SWG history, by your account. Its my word that insults you that I defy the acceptance of what you state [to paraphrase] Lucas Arts is blameless.
Where did John Smedely state that "LA is no longer to blame"? Its not in that interview.
Now who is the Hypocrite?
This is just getting silly...you keep ranting and raving and going off in these looney directions. As I said, I'm not looking to argue/discuss SOE, the NGE, or SWG as a whole. I'm not looking to go into all the old stuff.
I would just like for Smed supporters, like YOU, to concede that he's primarily responsible for the NGE, since HE HAS ADMITTED AS MUCH NOW.
But, my guess is, you'll never, ever concede that point. You are the proverbial "brick wall". So forget it. Enjoy living in fantasy land. Just know that, when the next discussion about SOE's business practices comes up, and SOE defenders try to lay the blame at LA's feet, they're gonna get hit with Smed's own statement. You better have some pretty damn good evidence to rebutt the testimony of THE GUY IN CHARGE at the time. The defenders have dished out the "prove it" line long enough. Here's some pretty good proof. Be prepared.
Until then.
(Oh, and just to clarify...I called you a hypocrite because you presented conspiracies about Jedi releases coinciding with tv shows, one post after you insulted others by calling them "conspiracy theorists". By definition, that's hypocritical. Grab a dictionary if necessary.)
Pretty silly argument here. While I think Smedley is fully to blame for the debacle, Lucas Arts is just as much to blame. They both signed off on it. The people they had doing the market survey's were completely ignorant of the MMO genre and had no business making idiotic recommendations.
What's done is done. What I do not understand is why SOE is so commited to NOT putting up a pre NGE server or two. It just does not make any sense whatsoever, but then Smedley makes no sense either.
You know why this won't (and shouldn't) change anything? Because while he has apologised for inflicting the NGE on the game, there was no hint of an apology for all the lies that were told in relation to the NGE - like, for example, the claim that it was based heavily on fan feedback and what fans were saying they wanted.
Though I guess he should get some credit for finally coming clean and admitting it was a lie.
QFT. We were indeed told that the NGE was based HEAVILY on community feedback, yet this invisible mystery panel of community representatives was never heard from. The fact that Smedley has had thousands of chances to tell the truth everyone knew though, makes his apology too little, too late.
Originally posted by Stradden Also in the article, Smedley discusses the future of SOE’s projects and even goes so far as to state that the company “fully intends” to make another EverQuest MMORPG.
Oh yay, it's been so long since anyone's made an Everquest clone!
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
This is just getting silly...you keep ranting and raving and going off in these looney directions. As I said, I'm not looking to argue/discuss SOE, the NGE, or SWG as a whole. I'm not looking to go into all the old stuff.
I would just like for Smed supporters, like YOU, to concede that he's primarily responsible for the NGE, since HE HAS ADMITTED AS MUCH NOW.
But, my guess is, you'll never, ever concede that point. You are the proverbial "brick wall". So forget it. Enjoy living in fantasy land. Just know that, when the next discussion about SOE's business practices comes up, and SOE defenders try to lay the blame at LA's feet, they're gonna get hit with Smed's own statement. You better have some pretty damn good evidence to rebutt the testimony of THE GUY IN CHARGE at the time. The defenders have dished out the "prove it" line long enough. Here's some pretty good proof. Be prepared. Until then.
(Oh, and just to clarify...I called you a hypocrite because you presented conspiracies about Jedi releases coinciding with tv shows, one post after you insulted others by calling them "conspiracy theorists". By definition, that's hypocritical. Grab a dictionary if necessary.)
Do you actually believe LA had no hand in the nge or held no authority to stop it ? The blame and responsibility lay with both parties in this ordeal , the head representatives of both companies are equally guilty . As long as both companies share the sales and subscription profits , They will both be responsible for the quality of that product . As well as share the consequences of any bad decision made on behalf of that product .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
This is just getting silly...you keep ranting and raving and going off in these looney directions. As I said, I'm not looking to argue/discuss SOE, the NGE, or SWG as a whole. I'm not looking to go into all the old stuff.
I would just like for Smed supporters, like YOU, to concede that he's primarily responsible for the NGE, since HE HAS ADMITTED AS MUCH NOW.
But, my guess is, you'll never, ever concede that point. You are the proverbial "brick wall". So forget it. Enjoy living in fantasy land. Just know that, when the next discussion about SOE's business practices comes up, and SOE defenders try to lay the blame at LA's feet, they're gonna get hit with Smed's own statement. You better have some pretty damn good evidence to rebutt the testimony of THE GUY IN CHARGE at the time. The defenders have dished out the "prove it" line long enough. Here's some pretty good proof. Be prepared. Until then.
(Oh, and just to clarify...I called you a hypocrite because you presented conspiracies about Jedi releases coinciding with tv shows, one post after you insulted others by calling them "conspiracy theorists". By definition, that's hypocritical. Grab a dictionary if necessary.)
Do you actually believe LA had no hand in the nge or held no authority to stop it ? The blame and responsibility lay with both parties in this ordeal , the head representatives of both companies are equally guilty . As long as both companies share the sales and subscription profits , They will both be responsible for the quality of that product . As well as share the consequences of any bad decision made on behalf of that product .
He has blamed Smedely for so long for the mistake that it is inconceivable for him to believe Jim Ward and LA had any hand in its outcome. I have met John and most of the SWG team in Vages. From thier reactions and reading between the words, there are things they are contractually obligated to uphold and not address. FPS is one of those along with other issues we all dislike of the NGE. I think it brave of him to try to address it even if its not what former players want to hear.
Why does it even matter if LA is found to be an issue? They are the ones that pass policy for SWG. Everything that goes into the game must be approved by them. Getting things changed, such as Classic Servers, must be approved before SOE can pursue it.
Yet the one biggest issue is that someone had to conceptualize the ideas and submit them to Lucas Arts for approval. I agree they both share blame, but Lucas contracted SOE to make the game and thats what they did.
this is an epic thread, never thought i'd be posting in a legitimate thread titled "smedley apologizes for NGE."
Playing: EVE Online Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2 KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
Yesterday, Warcry’s Dana Massey published an interview with Sony Online Entertainment’s CEO, John Smedley. In the interview, Smedley apologized for the New Game Experience released into Star Wars Galaxies in 2005. The move, which has been a perpetual thorn in SOE’s side ever since, was made without input from the game’s players and with little to no warning. The article quotes Smedley: "With the NGE, I'm sorry about the mistake we made," he told us. "We screwed up and didn't listen to the fans when we should have, and it's not a mistake we're going to make again." He goes on to say that the mistake was “not bringing the fans into the mix”, which he described as the “cardinal sin of not listening, but assuming....” Also in the article, Smedley discusses the future of SOE’s projects and even goes so far as to state that the company “fully intends” to make another EverQuest MMORPG.
Makes no difference at all to me. Either i like the game and play or i dont and vote with my feet. Trying to hold individuals or corporations to account is a waste of my time. Nor will i pathetically boycott all of their products on a principle. Life is too short. I played pre-cu and pre-ng and liked it, I play it now and again currently and its ok .
Hmmm, I wonder what Jim Ward of Lucas Arts thinks of this interview. Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, Lucas Arts and SOE made the decision "hand in hand" to go forward with the NGE. If you really look and read the history of this thing, you will know that both of these companies share the responciblity of the NGE. We have no idea what the contracts for SWG have in them. Here is a thought for you. Blixtev has admitted there is a shut off date for SWG but its years off. What servers are they going to use for the new EQ game?
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base ... There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an option to be part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
Hiya JYC ^_^. You make some good points as always. I especially like the way you highlighted the polished state of WoW, and how SOE/LA never got that part of the equation nailed down.
As for responsibility issues re. the NGE, I kind of see it from two perspectives. On one hand, you have that SOE dev post claiming full responsibility for the development and delivery of the NGE. Since SOE was willing to accept full responsibility for the nightmare that was the NGE, I was more than happy to give it to them. On the other hand, however, LA has been very tight-lipped about their involvement. It's obvious that they were involved on some level, but they haven't been as open about their role as SOE.
It would be good to hear LA take ownership of their role at some point as well.
Comments
Apology not accepted.
As others have mentioned, your "apology" is nothing more than damage control. It seems a futile attempt to wash away the bad reputation your company has earned before your new fleet of games comes out. After all, you don't want this whole NGE fiasco hurting those game's bottom lines.
There were so many broken promises made from 2003-2005. Your promise now to do better and listen to us, means nothing. We've heard it before many times.
You knowingly and willingly made all the time and effort us players put into SWG, meaningless. Just to cut costs and cater to the trigger happy kids who are playing WoW.
You are not sorry for publishing the NGE. You are not sorry for screwing your loyal customers over. You are only sorry that it didn't work out and you lost so many subscriptions. If the NGE was a huge success, you'd now be all "I told you so" in your interviews.
You destroyed our time investments, our virtual world, our virtual businesses, our hobby, and our communities, all in the name of greater profits. And you only now apologize because you want to shore up your image before your new games come out. Profits taking the forefront once again. I understand you run a business to make money... but you don't make money by discarding your current customers in the hopes you will gain more than you lost.
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base ... There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an option to be part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
I find it hilarious that in your first post, you deride others for their "conspiracy beliefs", then, when I call you out about your defense of an indefnsible fact, you rely on.......dun dun dun....
A wild, CONSPIRACY filled RANT!!!!!
LA did this, numbers I've never seen say that. This guy stopped posting for this, never confirmed, reason.
Blah blah blah.
Well done sir. You win hypocrite of the day honors.
Look, I'm not looking to get into the whole "SOE is a bad company" debate again. Really, I'm not. I just want the Smed/SOE defenders and apologists to take him at his word: that HE is responsible for the NGE. Stop using the "it was LA's fault" argument in future debates, Smed just killed it. There are plenty of other facts/arguments you can use. Just concede this ONE. Is that so hard to ask?
The only problem is, this "apology" doesn't fix the problem. We still have the NGE. If this apology came with an announcement that servers would be reset to Sep 13th (or 14th don't remember exact day) 2005 then the apology would be more meaningful. I would still like to be able to play this game but every time I try I just can't. The game is just unplayable to me. I have honestly tried to come back numerous times since the NGE and I just can't. It is just unplayable to me. I put thousands of hours in this game and had just finished my Jedi temp when the NGE hit and made Jedi a "starter" profession. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach by a GD horse. Even still, I would still come back if they would just fix the GD game mechanics. And a server merge wouldn't hurt either.
Darknell
Dark Jedi Knight
Kauri
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base ... There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an option to be part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
I find it hilarious that in your first post, you deride others for their "conspiracy beliefs", then, when I call you out about your defense of an indefnsible fact, you rely on.......dun dun dun....
A wild, CONSPIRACY filled RANT!!!!!
LA did this, numbers I've never seen say that. This guy stopped posting for this, never confirmed, reason.
Blah blah blah.
Well done sir. You win hypocrite of the day honors.
Look, I'm not looking to get into the whole "SOE is a bad company" debate again. Really, I'm not. I just want the Smed/SOE defenders and apologists to take him at his word: that HE is responsible for the NGE. Stop using the "it was LA's fault" argument in future debates, Smed just killed it. There are plenty of other facts/arguments you can use. Just concede this ONE. Is that so hard to ask?
OK, I get it,John Smedely took it on his own, in a fit of anger to change Galaxies from a world simulator MMO to multiplayer linear game to teach the SWG community a leason? ... Lucas Arts? ...George? ...the world? ...just you?
Please, explain to me how he took a then recovering MMO(the CU) with a popular IP attached and chose to totally reconstruct it on a whim? He did this against his contract with Lucas Arts (who must approve the Hair on Ewoks) on his own time and dollar.
My rantings... as you define, is a loose account of issues observed with SWG. A lot of that history was conveniently erased when SOE upgraded its forums. However, much of that history is in the blogs of concerned SWG vets.
You have not cared for those vets who did record the events of SWG. Have you ever read subscription numbers on MMOchart.com? Do you even know what a Pre-publish 9 Jedi is? Have you ever read a developer interview? How much of SWG history are you aware of? Who markets and sells Star Wars Galaxies?
I do not hate Smedley or Jim Ward. Without them we would never had Galaxies. You, however, can't have Galaxies with only one of them. We have no idea of the contract between SOE and Lucas Arts for SWG. It would seem that SOE is the speaking company for the brand. It is then John's place to make these statements.
I am a hypocrite for stating events of SWG history, by your account. Its my word that insults you that I defy the acceptance of what you state [to paraphrase] Lucas Arts is blameless.
Where did John Smedely state that "LA is no longer to blame"? Its not in that interview.
Now who is the Hypocrite?
Well Smed...U broke it now FIX it!! Untill that happens U can say ur sorry till ur blue in the face and it wont mean a darn thing!!
For the love of all that's good and right in this world.....
MOVE ON!!! You poor unfortunate souls.
Best way is a
new KOTOR MMO
that would rock
Smedley's arch Enemy, ,Jestor blogged about it two days ago at http://blog.myspace.com/lovethatjestor . Its appears that he cut them some slack until he hit page 2.
All MMO news belongs on MMORPG.
I accept your apology mr. smedley, and wish you well, somewhere far far away from the gaming industry...
though you must understand, that I will never ever again buy another game with SOE labled on it..
your apology was the first step, now the next step is to give the swg veterans what you took from them 2 years ago: "pre-cu" I remember a few days after the NGE, how people posted on the swg boards that they were sitting in front of their computer, crying and so on...
but SOE just didnt give a damn and ignored them... that was the worst thing I ever experienced with a gaming company...
"You must be either retarded or a fanboi..."
"Apology accepted, Captain Needa..." *breath*
Well, I guess it would be for all grown-ups to let the debate now, finally go. Alas, grown-up mentality is rare in gaming forums. Or forums at all. Or humanity at all...
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Reply for CEO (of a real mess he hes try to manage, named SOE)
I understand (but dont believe) that now you are listening to the (ex) playerbase.
Anyway, please, listen here: bring back your apology, you know where you can put .
You people really need to move on. He has admited he is wrong. What else can he do? bring backold SWG? well thats gonna be partly down to lucas and even if it did come back I seriously doubt it will be a financial success.
Anyway, hopefully now there will be a reduced amount of SWG CU/NGE /crying threads on the home page.
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base ... There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an option to be part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
I find it hilarious that in your first post, you deride others for their "conspiracy beliefs", then, when I call you out about your defense of an indefnsible fact, you rely on.......dun dun dun....
A wild, CONSPIRACY filled RANT!!!!!
LA did this, numbers I've never seen say that. This guy stopped posting for this, never confirmed, reason.
Blah blah blah.
Well done sir. You win hypocrite of the day honors.
Look, I'm not looking to get into the whole "SOE is a bad company" debate again. Really, I'm not. I just want the Smed/SOE defenders and apologists to take him at his word: that HE is responsible for the NGE. Stop using the "it was LA's fault" argument in future debates, Smed just killed it. There are plenty of other facts/arguments you can use. Just concede this ONE. Is that so hard to ask?
OK, I get it,John Smedely took it on his own, in a fit of anger to change Galaxies from a world simulator MMO to multiplayer linear game to teach the SWG community a leason? ... Lucas Arts? ...George? ...the world? ...just you?
Please, explain to me how he took a then recovering MMO(the CU) with a popular IP attached and chose to totally reconstruct it on a whim? He did this against his contract with Lucas Arts (who must approve the Hair on Ewoks) on his own time and dollar.
My rantings... as you define, is a loose account of issues observed with SWG. A lot of that history was conveniently erased when SOE upgraded its forums. However, much of that history is in the blogs of concerned SWG vets.
You have not cared for those vets who did record the events of SWG. Have you ever read subscription numbers on MMOchart.com? Do you even know what a Pre-publish 9 Jedi is? Have you ever read a developer interview? How much of SWG history are you aware of? Who markets and sells Star Wars Galaxies?
I do not hate Smedley or Jim Ward. Without them we would never had Galaxies. You, however, can't have Galaxies with only one of them. We have no idea of the contract between SOE and Lucas Arts for SWG. It would seem that SOE is the speaking company for the brand. It is then John's place to make these statements.
I am a hypocrite for stating events of SWG history, by your account. Its my word that insults you that I defy the acceptance of what you state [to paraphrase] Lucas Arts is blameless.
Where did John Smedely state that "LA is no longer to blame"? Its not in that interview.
Now who is the Hypocrite?
This is just getting silly...you keep ranting and raving and going off in these looney directions. As I said, I'm not looking to argue/discuss SOE, the NGE, or SWG as a whole. I'm not looking to go into all the old stuff.
I would just like for Smed supporters, like YOU, to concede that he's primarily responsible for the NGE, since HE HAS ADMITTED AS MUCH NOW.
But, my guess is, you'll never, ever concede that point. You are the proverbial "brick wall". So forget it. Enjoy living in fantasy land. Just know that, when the next discussion about SOE's business practices comes up, and SOE defenders try to lay the blame at LA's feet, they're gonna get hit with Smed's own statement. You better have some pretty damn good evidence to rebutt the testimony of THE GUY IN CHARGE at the time. The defenders have dished out the "prove it" line long enough. Here's some pretty good proof. Be prepared.
Until then.
(Oh, and just to clarify...I called you a hypocrite because you presented conspiracies about Jedi releases coinciding with tv shows, one post after you insulted others by calling them "conspiracy theorists". By definition, that's hypocritical. Grab a dictionary if necessary.)
Pretty silly argument here. While I think Smedley is fully to blame for the debacle, Lucas Arts is just as much to blame. They both signed off on it. The people they had doing the market survey's were completely ignorant of the MMO genre and had no business making idiotic recommendations.
What's done is done. What I do not understand is why SOE is so commited to NOT putting up a pre NGE server or two. It just does not make any sense whatsoever, but then Smedley makes no sense either.
I have moved on now... Yes, SWG was my favorite game back in the days (even in it's sad broken state since day 1).
People will never shut up about SWG.
eqnext.wikia.com
QFT. We were indeed told that the NGE was based HEAVILY on community feedback, yet this invisible mystery panel of community representatives was never heard from. The fact that Smedley has had thousands of chances to tell the truth everyone knew though, makes his apology too little, too late.
Oh yay, it's been so long since anyone's made an Everquest clone!
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Do you actually believe LA had no hand in the nge or held no authority to stop it ? The blame and responsibility lay with both parties in this ordeal , the head representatives of both companies are equally guilty . As long as both companies share the sales and subscription profits , They will both be responsible for the quality of that product . As well as share the consequences of any bad decision made on behalf of that product .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Do you actually believe LA had no hand in the nge or held no authority to stop it ? The blame and responsibility lay with both parties in this ordeal , the head representatives of both companies are equally guilty . As long as both companies share the sales and subscription profits , They will both be responsible for the quality of that product . As well as share the consequences of any bad decision made on behalf of that product .
He has blamed Smedely for so long for the mistake that it is inconceivable for him to believe Jim Ward and LA had any hand in its outcome. I have met John and most of the SWG team in Vages. From thier reactions and reading between the words, there are things they are contractually obligated to uphold and not address. FPS is one of those along with other issues we all dislike of the NGE. I think it brave of him to try to address it even if its not what former players want to hear.
Why does it even matter if LA is found to be an issue? They are the ones that pass policy for SWG. Everything that goes into the game must be approved by them. Getting things changed, such as Classic Servers, must be approved before SOE can pursue it.
Yet the one biggest issue is that someone had to conceptualize the ideas and submit them to Lucas Arts for approval. I agree they both share blame, but Lucas contracted SOE to make the game and thats what they did.
this is an epic thread, never thought i'd be posting in a legitimate thread titled "smedley apologizes for NGE."
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
To little To late.
Makes no difference at all to me. Either i like the game and play or i dont and vote with my feet. Trying to hold individuals or corporations to account is a waste of my time. Nor will i pathetically boycott all of their products on a principle. Life is too short. I played pre-cu and pre-ng and liked it, I play it now and again currently and its ok .
To err is human....to play is divine
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base ... There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an option to be part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
Hiya JYC ^_^. You make some good points as always. I especially like the way you highlighted the polished state of WoW, and how SOE/LA never got that part of the equation nailed down.As for responsibility issues re. the NGE, I kind of see it from two perspectives. On one hand, you have that SOE dev post claiming full responsibility for the development and delivery of the NGE. Since SOE was willing to accept full responsibility for the nightmare that was the NGE, I was more than happy to give it to them. On the other hand, however, LA has been very tight-lipped about their involvement. It's obvious that they were involved on some level, but they haven't been as open about their role as SOE.
It would be good to hear LA take ownership of their role at some point as well.