althought i agree things had to change as in get rid of the xp grind . the combat system did not need to be change i find the new combat system hard to control and a headache . the idea of quest base xp is a great touch to bad it only for up to lvl 30 . rob did you try jedi melee is a pain or try a bh mission i have a 80 lvl bh and got own on a easy mission . the nge has more bugs then a 2 dollar hooker . it unplayable . keefe why lie there not many people that play anymore just admit it this is the big boom . guess i go bad to wow later all
The NGE is SWG now. You need to update the SWG and user ratings for this new game. You are doing everyone a disservice by leaving those old 7.0and 7.7 reviews up.
MMORPG.com: Has any thought been given to offering classic servers or alternatively, restricting these sweeping changes to new servers, or even simply doing a sequel or parallel title?
Casey Keefe:
No. ____________________________________________________________________________________ the insensibility is **unbelieveable**!! It's this kind of comment that caused me not to regret cancelling my account last night. After 2 years of playing and spending my hard earn dollar to these SOE guys, it is very disappointing that they don't at least try? Freaking **unbelieveable**!!
Your so right! not even a politicaly correct spin of an answer, just "No"
Think maybe they know that a "classic server" would be flooded with people lining up to get on, thus showing just how bad the NGE is really doing?
Almost two year veteran of the Galaxy here and kudos to the OP for the review.
I usually pride myself in being an objective, reasonable person and also approach that to my style of gaming. SoE/LA has every right to try to improve the game by any means necessary. I personally, and have stated on the official boards, that I *like* the NGE and its potential.
Herein lies the dilemma, the current customer base shouldnt have to pay for a game that is obviously rushed out for whatever reason. Needing to drive in a direction towards influxing new customers and new blood into a game is great, but the implementation of this was just flat out bad. Someone wrote before somewhere that this has given SoE a permenant black eye. I agree. The relation of the people driving the car has been awful to the passengers.
The long term veterans and people in the game who made the game as it was were left in the dust to make way for a new generation of gamers? Unreal. I cant understand the philosophy behind that marketing. What looks good on paper and in spreadsheets for some, doesnt necessarily translate to victory when applied.
I have cancelled with great sadness, mostly because Im an older man and cannot keep up with the new 'twitch' style of gameplay. Also the amount of players leaving has left a deafining echo of silence of servers. I dont reason paying a monthly fee for something that is unfinished, they tell us that things are being worked on, being coded and such. I would rather spend my money on a gaming experience that provides a stable (and fun) environment.
I hope SWG comes out of this for the better and somehow learns to listen to the community, because its them that will make the game, not the developers.
SWG was a mistake from Day 1. SW is not about people fighting wildlife and the combat system was so bad that you could think that it was a beta. What you had was a bunch of people running around, almost no "donjons", stupid way to show legendary characters (Hi Emperor, i'm a tourist, may I take a picture of you while I'm visiting your residence ?"), no space, sim city economy, the most boring quest of any MMO,etc, etc, etc. Not even talking about the bugs, the things completly unbalanced, the unfriendly UI...
I had small hope with the wookies addon and in fact it changed nothing.
BUT NOW
They decided to restart from zero and that's fun because it was always what I thought and told to my friends ("to make a good game of that mess they need to make a new game).
So I'm gonna try that new SWG because the old one was not SW and maybe this one will be, at last ! Though my hopes are low because my SWG experience is just a chain of incredible deceptions.
Originally posted by daeandor I think Rob Hinman pretty much hit the nail on the head in his review. In fact, I think his giving NGE a 6.3 was generous.
QFT. That is the same way I felt after trying the NGE, and reading the review.
In War - Victory. In Peace - Vigilance. In Death - Sacrifice.
I have been playing SWG for two years and they have re-invented their game.
From the very foundation, they condensed 30 something professions into 9. Many crafters who Master Docs, Master Merchants or some similar arrangement went from a level 55 (of 80) to a level 3 after the upgrade because re-spec's are based on combat professions. Chef's who use thousands of units of meat to make additives is now a loot drop. Meat as a loot drop? Wha?
For the veteran community they offered lightsaber crystals, buffs and so on. The buffs just went live, the crystals are insignificant for lightsaber damage and Jedi now have no armor (they said a patch would be forth coming). For new Jedi who require Krayt (high level NPC) pearls or crystals I don't think a premium one has dropped on Sunrunner for 9 months (they are rated flawless, premium, quality, good and poor). Just look at their forums (any of them) and almost everyone is kicking and screaming.
The editor had a great point and this is not how you fix something. The player community had the bomb dropped on it that the upgrade was taking place a week after many bought the upgrade and a month after the Squad leader profession was totally revamped.
It's as if the developers or the suits have ADD and don't know what's going on. I would venture to bet that the ONLY reason it's still even online is the Star Wars name...
While the community was nice, the graphics awesome...the gameplay is now so poorly designed and broken that the membership numbers must be hemmoraging. It's sad to see such a great game, with such good intent turn into what it has become for many players...a true dissapointment.
I only played SWG for a month and quit due to my dislike of the way they made the game, but i have to say i am truely sorry for those player that have invested so much time & effort in to this game and have had what they enjoyd about it taken away from them.
Perhaps the exsisting players who are displeased with the changes should cancel there subs and boycot the game till they get some sort of compromise, after all money talks far louder then words starve them of your $$$ and they will have to listen, after all this seems to stem from a wanting of a larger player base to leach more cash off.
Im sure there are far better ways to utilize the SW IP then to change the game in the way they have and upset so many people that have stuck with this game.
Lucas Arts needs to fire SOE find a game company that doesnt sacrifice quality and make a new MMORPG based off the clone wars...and mabey this time actually give us a war...
Interesting read pretty accurate for the most part although I think the 6.3 is giving it alot.
I wasn't a fan of the CU either but at least that was playable and I learned to adapt to it.
You glossed over crafting tho,which in the nge is pretty much ruined.Weapons and armour no longer decay from use or death.Collecting hides or bone for armoursmiths is pretty well impossible as they are loot items now.Even in a recent dev chat one of the devs commented that player made weapons were prettymuch just for noobs to level with until they can get the higher end quest items.
You hit the nail right on the head with your experiences in the tutorial to the real game.During beta I was having a pretty good time as a noob running the tutorial and found myself thinking this might not be too bad.Then it hit live and my recently improved Mpistoleer/MSL was nothing but an aggravation to play.The UI is horribly implemented,during a fight having to control your char with either the wasd or arrows keys,trying to hit a number key to select specials as well as trying to keep a target curser on a mob running around like a lunatic is nothing short of rage inducing.
Combat itself is more aggravation,either I end up targetting a group member who is melee and trying to get close to the mob or if a stack of melee mobs is there you switch randomly between them as they jump and bop around or the most aggravating if you happen to target over a corpse the damn loot box opens up in the middle of the screen.
Anyhow this got off topic somewhat,back to the thought if it's fair for a game company to change a game mid stride.The thought in my mind is moot SOE/LA is a for profit company,they are no different then Microsoft or Ford or any other multi million dollar company.What is or isn't fair is irrelevant to the only thing that matters to them,profits.They don't make these changes to make thier current players happy because as far as thier concerned there isn't enough players in the current player base.These changes are to attract either all the players that left over the years or attract new players.The only time you see Devs these days that seem to listen to thier current players are the smaller Dev houses without the big publishers behind them calling the shots,Eve and AO come to mind.Mayby it will work mayby it won't,either way my accounts closed as of dec 16th the nge is just not fun to play.
Well , $14 X 36 mounth = $ 504 x 4 accounts = $ 2008,00
SWG R.I.P
Dont buy it , for long time game has a bugs , Fun suport , now L.A stole all SWG players
Yeah refund for EUA only , nice if 70% are out EUA
Hmm... i think if L.A kill SW title cuz all fans never will go buy another SW game soon L.A R.I.P
No new movies , no new players , no new SW titles , i has all L.A SW games , now i never buy another game from Lucas Arts , never buy nothing from Sony
Sony+Lucas stole all players
I dont want this refund , i think L.A now need so much this money cuz SWG players buy all games , all movies , all cartoons , all gifts all about SW
Ok , in my guild 159 players still now waiting for vote for play another mmorpg , btw my guild play Matrix , EQ 2 and SWG , now no more Sony games or another product from Sony or L.A
George Lucas dont like ur fans
BTW dont wait SW fans in Indianna Jones or another movie from u
Too simplified? As if hitting 1, 2, 3 is complicated? Simplified is hitting your autoattack key. Its hardly simplified to keep your mouse over a monster, select your hotkey and right mouse click. No, I'm not saying its complicated, either. Whereas, before you just hit autoattack and hotkey, which is close to being as simplified as it gets. You, and others with this attitude, are just too full of yourselves.
SOE has failed - The game that I was prema banned from for allegded forum misuse is no more. This should make me happy but it does not . Its a shame that SOE betrayed me but they have no problem betraying all the current playing customers with this NGE - Didn't someone tell them about "the NEW Coke".
Someone screwed up in marketing and Smedley, who s interview in the PC Gamer podcast only highlights his lack of knowledge or interest should take the blame ( and resign himself to his new career as a live action Howdy Doddy).
Originally posted by Sonynever Well , $14 X 36 mounth = $ 504 x 4 accounts = $ 2008,00 SWG R.I.P Dont buy it , for long time game has a bugs , Fun suport , now L.A stole all SWG players Yeah refund for EUA only , nice if 70% are out EUA Hmm... i think if L.A kill SW title cuz all fans never will go buy another SW game soon L.A R.I.P No new movies , no new players , no new SW titles , i has all L.A SW games , now i never buy another game from Lucas Arts , never buy nothing from Sony Sony+Lucas stole all players I dont want this refund , i think L.A now need so much this money cuz SWG players buy all games , all movies , all cartoons , all gifts all about SW Ok , in my guild 159 players still now waiting for vote for play another mmorpg , btw my guild play Matrix , EQ 2 and SWG , now no more Sony games or another product from Sony or L.A George Lucas dont like ur fans BTW dont wait SW fans in Indianna Jones or another movie from u
I am disappointed that MMORPG.com staff could not be fully and brutally honest about how horrible the gameplay in SWG currently is and how unethical SOE/LA has been in their conduct. They should look into strengthening the chinese wall between advertising and editorial at MMORPG.com because it's obvious that the editorial staff is pulling their punches.
I loved SWG and love SWG. As such, my fervant hope is that it closes down ASAP. Smedley at SOE has been the most destructive force to the MMORPG industry I could have ever imagined. He ruined Koster's sandbox vision for SWG with horrible implementation, he corrupted McQuaid's vision in EQ2, he was retarded enough to buy that POS MxO. The sooner Smedley gets fired from Sony the better the MMO industry will be. It's one thing for incompetence to be the result of the Peter Principle in the case of Smedley, but it's a whole new ball game with the way he is singlehandedly destroying brand likeability of IP and sowing blinding rage among the gaming consumer community.
Originally posted by Teala You know the more I review your review, I think you are actually doing a huge disservice to gamers with your scores. Are you afraid to score it honestly so that SOE doesn't pull their ads? I think maybe you are. As long as gaming websites like this kiss up to game companies like SOE they'll continue to release buggy and broken games. NGE is chuck full of bugs, it is not even 1/4 of the way finished. Combat is atrocious. The loot tables are no better than what they had before though they swear they are. The GUI is abysmal. How can you possibly think that you can score this game the way you did and think people are going to take you seriously?
I reviewed the game and I gave it a fair rating. lol, we have no secret agenda with SOE. On the same note, if I were to give it all 3s I guarantee you that I would get a whole bunch of How can you possibly think that you can score this game the way you did and think people are going to take you seriously? but from the opposite playerbase than you.
If I gave it a all 3s or all 2s would you seriously have agreed to the review? Maybe you. But what about others? I think the rating was fair. The final rating was 6.3. Look at the average ratings of mmorpgs. 6.3 isnt the greatest in the world. If I gave the final rating of SWG a 3 I would transcend from a Mmorpg.com reviewer to an upset SWG fan who feels SOE is ripping me off.
And to reinterate....no we do not have some super secret AD deal with SOE. That's hilarious.
Rob, who is asking you to rate it all 3's and 2's? I sure didn't. I questioned three of your scores. The rest were OK IMHO. Nobody is asking you to rip SOE either. Honesty, though, is hard to come by in most reviews and yours is a prime example of a reviewer that pulls the punches and sugar coats things. For you to say that SWG's CS is as good as you rated it shows you are treating SOE with kit-gloves. Oh and I am not an SWG hater, nor am I an NGE hater. I am a gamer that finds SOE disrespectful to its entire player base and gaming community in general. It should have tested and tweaked the NGE for another 8 months at the least before unleashing that mess on the SWG community. Instead they snuck it in under the radar, and announced it 2 days after releasing a new exapnsion knowing good and well that the NGE would pretty much negate 1/2 of the content that came with ToOW. Then the rushed the NGE to TC and released it after only 2 weeks of player testing. And despite the players pleas of waiting to release it - they do what the always do and thumbed their nose at the community and released it anyway.
I personally welcome changes to SWG, however, SOE blew it in how they are handling it and I like many others refuse to go back to alpha phase for a game that is all ready 2+ years old.
You summarized everything perfectly in my opinion. The debate/war wages on. Soon the question you asked will be answered.
Just a quick thought. Did you catch there friday feature posted today? If so then notice this. You have to either start a new character on another server or delete your existing toon to take part in it.
Originally posted by Squidi I thought the editorial was excellent, but I don't think that it is possible to maintain pre-NGE servers.Given the complexity of the relationship between all the different databases, it would be extremely difficult to separate them out. Even if it such trouble could be eventually overcome, it is unlikely that a playerbase large enough to afford the hardware costs would exist for a game that could effectively never be updated ever again. They wouldn't get any bug fixes and they wouldn't get any expansions. People would get tired and quit far sooner than the cost of setting up a pre-NGE server would be paid off.
I honestly do not think this would have been that big a problem. All they had to do is open up a few more servers with the current product and NGE those new servers leaving all the original ones alone.
Has to be the worste thing SOE/LA have ever done to the game. The CU I dealt with, and eventually loved it. This Unfortunately has no resemblance to the original game at all. It's not what I started playing two years ago. They really need to think this through alot more before pushing the NGE out the door into the public. It has been live for two, or three weeks now I beleive, and already I see the numbers of people dropping lower than ever.
Originally posted by Kimo I honestly do not think this would have been that big a problem. All they had to do is open up a few more servers with the current product and NGE those new servers leaving all the original ones alone.
I doubt it is that simple. If you are really interested, Game Developer magazine ran an article on the server farms that make up Everquest last... I think May-ish.
I have had the game since launch and the ideals were always of GCW end game and a starwars experience. Do not try to tell me that you believe the "core structure" of the game was EVER about Jedi. We all know that the people you are trying to defend are Jedi characters that have lost all their uber status. Jedi are NOT the original players in this game. Your criticism is about 2 years too late. If you wanted to preach loyalty to the original players then you should be praising the fact that the game has been restored to its original focus on the GCW and immersion in the star wars experience. These changes are for the better, and anyone who believes in a balance system that is workable and fun is going to like the NGE. The old system was impossible to balance and way too many resources were being spent on the extremely vocal jedi population. The NGE does need to be polished, and it remains to be seen if these new ideas will be fruitfully reproduced in game, however they are definately on the right track, and as an original player, im glad someone finally grew some balls and did what needed to be done.
"I would suggest they give it a real honest try, if they do not like it after that then at least they have given it a fair shake and more money to us because we ain't going to offer them a free try, muahahahaha !"
Fixed. That's how it should read.
----------------------------------------- There are 10 kind of programmers. Those who understand binary code and those who don't.
I hope someone at SOE reads your editorial and learns something from it. They are basically the same words than hundreds of players have already posted in the SWG forums, but they have not been taken into consideration so far. It's not about whether the new fast-paced combat system and the iconic professions are better or not for SWG, it's about how SOE did things: two major upgrades in six months with a total lack of sensitivity to players.
Anyway, it's too late for me: I enjoyed SWG very much after CU, but now I am too pissed off of SOE and I am not willing to pay the same amount of money for a beta quality product. I will give it a try in six months, when they have published a few publishes and the new game has advanced to a more stable and feature rich status.
Comments
I could have taken most of the changes if they had not screwed around with movement and targeting. When they did that, I hit "Cancel".
I began the game in June 2003, day one vet am I.
All my friends, associates and guildmates are gone.
Two words for you now about SWG: ICK, POO.
The Force WAS with us, then came the CU!
althought i agree things had to change as in get rid of the xp grind . the combat system did not need to be change i find the new combat system hard to control and a headache . the idea of quest base xp is a great touch to bad it only for up to lvl 30 . rob did you try jedi melee is a pain or try a bh mission i have a 80 lvl bh and got own on a easy mission . the nge has more bugs then a 2 dollar hooker . it unplayable . keefe why lie there not many people that play anymore just admit it this is the big boom . guess i go bad to wow later all
Your so right! not even a politicaly correct spin of an answer, just "No"
Think maybe they know that a "classic server" would be flooded with people lining up to get on, thus showing just how bad the NGE is really doing?
Almost two year veteran of the Galaxy here and kudos to the OP for the review.
I usually pride myself in being an objective, reasonable person and also approach that to my style of gaming. SoE/LA has every right to try to improve the game by any means necessary. I personally, and have stated on the official boards, that I *like* the NGE and its potential.
Herein lies the dilemma, the current customer base shouldnt have to pay for a game that is obviously rushed out for whatever reason. Needing to drive in a direction towards influxing new customers and new blood into a game is great, but the implementation of this was just flat out bad. Someone wrote before somewhere that this has given SoE a permenant black eye. I agree. The relation of the people driving the car has been awful to the passengers.
The long term veterans and people in the game who made the game as it was were left in the dust to make way for a new generation of gamers? Unreal. I cant understand the philosophy behind that marketing. What looks good on paper and in spreadsheets for some, doesnt necessarily translate to victory when applied.
I have cancelled with great sadness, mostly because Im an older man and cannot keep up with the new 'twitch' style of gameplay. Also the amount of players leaving has left a deafining echo of silence of servers. I dont reason paying a monthly fee for something that is unfinished, they tell us that things are being worked on, being coded and such. I would rather spend my money on a gaming experience that provides a stable (and fun) environment.
I hope SWG comes out of this for the better and somehow learns to listen to the community, because its them that will make the game, not the developers.
SWG was a mistake from Day 1. SW is not about people fighting wildlife and the combat system was so bad that you could think that it was a beta. What you had was a bunch of people running around, almost no "donjons", stupid way to show legendary characters (Hi Emperor, i'm a tourist, may I take a picture of you while I'm visiting your residence ?"), no space, sim city economy, the most boring quest of any MMO,etc, etc, etc. Not even talking about the bugs, the things completly unbalanced, the unfriendly UI...
I had small hope with the wookies addon and in fact it changed nothing.
BUT NOW
They decided to restart from zero and that's fun because it was always what I thought and told to my friends ("to make a good game of that mess they need to make a new game).
So I'm gonna try that new SWG because the old one was not SW and maybe this one will be, at last ! Though my hopes are low because my SWG experience is just a chain of incredible deceptions.
QFT. That is the same way I felt after trying the NGE, and reading the review.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
I have been playing SWG for two years and they have re-invented their game.
From the very foundation, they condensed 30 something professions into 9. Many crafters who Master Docs, Master Merchants or some similar arrangement went from a level 55 (of 80) to a level 3 after the upgrade because re-spec's are based on combat professions. Chef's who use thousands of units of meat to make additives is now a loot drop. Meat as a loot drop? Wha?
For the veteran community they offered lightsaber crystals, buffs and so on. The buffs just went live, the crystals are insignificant for lightsaber damage and Jedi now have no armor (they said a patch would be forth coming). For new Jedi who require Krayt (high level NPC) pearls or crystals I don't think a premium one has dropped on Sunrunner for 9 months (they are rated flawless, premium, quality, good and poor). Just look at their forums (any of them) and almost everyone is kicking and screaming.
The editor had a great point and this is not how you fix something. The player community had the bomb dropped on it that the upgrade was taking place a week after many bought the upgrade and a month after the Squad leader profession was totally revamped.
It's as if the developers or the suits have ADD and don't know what's going on. I would venture to bet that the ONLY reason it's still even online is the Star Wars name...
While the community was nice, the graphics awesome...the gameplay is now so poorly designed and broken that the membership numbers must be hemmoraging. It's sad to see such a great game, with such good intent turn into what it has become for many players...a true dissapointment.
I only played SWG for a month and quit due to my dislike of the way they made the game, but i have to say i am truely sorry for those player that have invested so much time & effort in to this game and have had what they enjoyd about it taken away from them.
Perhaps the exsisting players who are displeased with the changes should cancel there subs and boycot the game till they get some sort of compromise, after all money talks far louder then words starve them of your $$$ and they will have to listen, after all this seems to stem from a wanting of a larger player base to leach more cash off.
Im sure there are far better ways to utilize the SW IP then to change the game in the way they have and upset so many people that have stuck with this game.
Lucas Arts needs to fire SOE find a game company that doesnt sacrifice quality and make a new MMORPG based off the clone wars...and mabey this time actually give us a war...
Interesting read pretty accurate for the most part although I think the 6.3 is giving it alot.
I wasn't a fan of the CU either but at least that was playable and I learned to adapt to it.
You glossed over crafting tho,which in the nge is pretty much ruined.Weapons and armour no longer decay from use or death.Collecting hides or bone for armoursmiths is pretty well impossible as they are loot items now.Even in a recent dev chat one of the devs commented that player made weapons were prettymuch just for noobs to level with until they can get the higher end quest items.
You hit the nail right on the head with your experiences in the tutorial to the real game.During beta I was having a pretty good time as a noob running the tutorial and found myself thinking this might not be too bad.Then it hit live and my recently improved Mpistoleer/MSL was nothing but an aggravation to play.The UI is horribly implemented,during a fight having to control your char with either the wasd or arrows keys,trying to hit a number key to select specials as well as trying to keep a target curser on a mob running around like a lunatic is nothing short of rage inducing.
Combat itself is more aggravation,either I end up targetting a group member who is melee and trying to get close to the mob or if a stack of melee mobs is there you switch randomly between them as they jump and bop around or the most aggravating if you happen to target over a corpse the damn loot box opens up in the middle of the screen.
Anyhow this got off topic somewhat,back to the thought if it's fair for a game company to change a game mid stride.The thought in my mind is moot SOE/LA is a for profit company,they are no different then Microsoft or Ford or any other multi million dollar company.What is or isn't fair is irrelevant to the only thing that matters to them,profits.They don't make these changes to make thier current players happy because as far as thier concerned there isn't enough players in the current player base.These changes are to attract either all the players that left over the years or attract new players.The only time you see Devs these days that seem to listen to thier current players are the smaller Dev houses without the big publishers behind them calling the shots,Eve and AO come to mind.Mayby it will work mayby it won't,either way my accounts closed as of dec 16th the nge is just not fun to play.
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
Well , $14 X 36 mounth = $ 504 x 4 accounts = $ 2008,00
SWG R.I.P
Dont buy it , for long time game has a bugs , Fun suport , now L.A stole all SWG players
Yeah refund for EUA only , nice if 70% are out EUA
Hmm... i think if L.A kill SW title cuz all fans never will go buy another SW game soon L.A R.I.P
No new movies , no new players , no new SW titles , i has all L.A SW games , now i never buy another game from Lucas Arts , never buy nothing from Sony
Sony+Lucas stole all players
I dont want this refund , i think L.A now need so much this money cuz SWG players buy all games , all movies , all cartoons , all gifts all about SW
Ok , in my guild 159 players still now waiting for vote for play another mmorpg , btw my guild play Matrix , EQ 2 and SWG , now no more Sony games or another product from Sony or L.A
George Lucas dont like ur fans
BTW dont wait SW fans in Indianna Jones or another movie from u
SOE has failed - The game that I was prema banned from for allegded forum misuse is no more. This should make me happy but it does not . Its a shame that SOE betrayed me but they have no problem betraying all the current playing customers with this NGE - Didn't someone tell them about "the NEW Coke".
Someone screwed up in marketing and Smedley, who s interview in the PC Gamer podcast only highlights his lack of knowledge or interest should take the blame ( and resign himself to his new career as a live action Howdy Doddy).
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
Wha.....?
I am disappointed that MMORPG.com staff could not be fully and brutally honest about how horrible the gameplay in SWG currently is and how unethical SOE/LA has been in their conduct. They should look into strengthening the chinese wall between advertising and editorial at MMORPG.com because it's obvious that the editorial staff is pulling their punches.
I loved SWG and love SWG. As such, my fervant hope is that it closes down ASAP. Smedley at SOE has been the most destructive force to the MMORPG industry I could have ever imagined. He ruined Koster's sandbox vision for SWG with horrible implementation, he corrupted McQuaid's vision in EQ2, he was retarded enough to buy that POS MxO. The sooner Smedley gets fired from Sony the better the MMO industry will be. It's one thing for incompetence to be the result of the Peter Principle in the case of Smedley, but it's a whole new ball game with the way he is singlehandedly destroying brand likeability of IP and sowing blinding rage among the gaming consumer community.
I reviewed the game and I gave it a fair rating. lol, we have no secret agenda with SOE. On the same note, if I were to give it all 3s I guarantee you that I would get a whole bunch of How can you possibly think that you can score this game the way you did and think people are going to take you seriously? but from the opposite playerbase than you.
If I gave it a all 3s or all 2s would you seriously have agreed to the review? Maybe you. But what about others? I think the rating was fair. The final rating was 6.3. Look at the average ratings of mmorpgs. 6.3 isnt the greatest in the world. If I gave the final rating of SWG a 3 I would transcend from a Mmorpg.com reviewer to an upset SWG fan who feels SOE is ripping me off.
And to reinterate....no we do not have some super secret AD deal with SOE. That's hilarious.
Rob, who is asking you to rate it all 3's and 2's? I sure didn't. I questioned three of your scores. The rest were OK IMHO. Nobody is asking you to rip SOE either. Honesty, though, is hard to come by in most reviews and yours is a prime example of a reviewer that pulls the punches and sugar coats things. For you to say that SWG's CS is as good as you rated it shows you are treating SOE with kit-gloves. Oh and I am not an SWG hater, nor am I an NGE hater. I am a gamer that finds SOE disrespectful to its entire player base and gaming community in general. It should have tested and tweaked the NGE for another 8 months at the least before unleashing that mess on the SWG community. Instead they snuck it in under the radar, and announced it 2 days after releasing a new exapnsion knowing good and well that the NGE would pretty much negate 1/2 of the content that came with ToOW. Then the rushed the NGE to TC and released it after only 2 weeks of player testing. And despite the players pleas of waiting to release it - they do what the always do and thumbed their nose at the community and released it anyway.
I personally welcome changes to SWG, however, SOE blew it in how they are handling it and I like many others refuse to go back to alpha phase for a game that is all ready 2+ years old.
Honest objective review.
You summarized everything perfectly in my opinion. The debate/war wages on. Soon the question you asked will be answered.
Just a quick thought. Did you catch there friday feature posted today? If so then notice this. You have to either start a new character on another server or delete your existing toon to take part in it.
Wonder why veterns continue to feel not wanted?
What rubbish.
I have had the game since launch and the ideals were always of GCW end game and a starwars experience. Do not try to tell me that you believe the "core structure" of the game was EVER about Jedi. We all know that the people you are trying to defend are Jedi characters that have lost all their uber status. Jedi are NOT the original players in this game. Your criticism is about 2 years too late. If you wanted to preach loyalty to the original players then you should be praising the fact that the game has been restored to its original focus on the GCW and immersion in the star wars experience. These changes are for the better, and anyone who believes in a balance system that is workable and fun is going to like the NGE. The old system was impossible to balance and way too many resources were being spent on the extremely vocal jedi population. The NGE does need to be polished, and it remains to be seen if these new ideas will be fruitfully reproduced in game, however they are definately on the right track, and as an original player, im glad someone finally grew some balls and did what needed to be done.
"I would suggest they give it a real honest try, if they do not like it after that then at least they have given it a fair shake and more money to us because we ain't going to offer them a free try, muahahahaha !"
Fixed. That's how it should read.
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There are 10 kind of programmers. Those who understand binary code and those who don't.
I hope someone at SOE reads your editorial and learns something from it. They are basically the same words than hundreds of players have already posted in the SWG forums, but they have not been taken into consideration so far. It's not about whether the new fast-paced combat system and the iconic professions are better or not for SWG, it's about how SOE did things: two major upgrades in six months with a total lack of sensitivity to players.
Anyway, it's too late for me: I enjoyed SWG very much after CU, but now I am too pissed off of SOE and I am not willing to pay the same amount of money for a beta quality product. I will give it a try in six months, when they have published a few publishes and the new game has advanced to a more stable and feature rich status.
Tsotha-Lanti