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Star Wars Galaxies: Smedley Apologizes for NGE
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
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.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Now hopefully we can stop all the whining, right guys?
An apology does not resolve the problem, unfortunately.
And when did Dana move to WarCry?
Lmao he says they wont make that mistake again .. And they are still making it ,many communitys still begging for the old SWG but are turned away.. so how much are they really listening to the community...
What more can we ask for? They screwed up and thats what they say when they apologize to us.
I agree, lets move on....
Sometimes its more important to undo a mistake rather than saying ''we wont do it again''. This doesn't solve anything
sorry smed you still deserve a kick at a certain place
The sad thing is, it only took him 3 years to admit to such.
He also forgets to mention most of the development staff were very much opposed to the change too.
People can't seem to get over it, and move on with their lives.
the key thing there is, he admits they screwed up, apologizes for it, but wont bring it back.
I think the best thing SWG could do, would be to make a classic server with the original rule set. I would personally resub for that, and probably bring a few people with me.
I think it would be the most popular server with in a few hours, and they would eventually end up having to open up 2 or 3 like DAOC's classic server did.
Will they be smart enough to do it? doubtful
I as a former SWG fan accept his apology and hope that, if anything, SOE has learned from it. It really baffled me why they did the NGE in the first place. The CU came out mere months before and after the CU the game saw a resurgence of players both new and old to the point that servers were having a hard time handling all the players. Servers that were on the verge of dying out, suddenly were listed as 'heavy' on the server list, those that had kept a reasonable number of players were becoming so lagy that on Starsider, during peak, I would completely avoid planets like Dantooine simply because they were so populated it was lag-city.
Then mere months later, the NGE hit with barely a whisper about it from the devs, no real testing, and just utterly and completely changed a game that was really hitting it's peak, into a wanabe WoW clone that was just god awful. They lost hundreds of millions of players and even 2 years later, still haven't recovered a 10th of them.
Never thought we'd hear that from old Smed tbh.
Doesnt matter much what he says tho, some ppl will never get over it
Just like they have more EQ games, I really hope they come out with an SWG II and do it right. I think the Star Wars theme has more potencial than any other sci fi game. They just need to do it right. SWG was great when it was first released, aside from the bugs and the lack of mission content. I loved the skill-based system, housing, crafting system etc.
All I can hope for is that SWG II is in the works.
Seriously, I think this means the SOE should just begin on a SWG 2. They know there mistake now, best to just let it die out.
I for one as a huge supporter of PRE-NGE accept smeds apology, I dont care how long it took him, i dont care that he cant bring back the old game, Im just glad to hear him say it.
Im moving on.
-Jive
maybe his hands are tied...and SOE can't bring back pre NGE servers because of LA
i've been thinking, where the hell is LucasArts in this? If anyone should apologize and come crawling on their knees it would be them. Thanks to those fools the nge got through as well
The end is near!
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
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.
In January.
It's funny reading the responses from some people, saying "heh get over it and move on...." The only reason Smedley has finally apologized 3 yrs later, is because players wouldn't let it go. There is an arrogance in gaming companies / large corporations - and this is just a taste of that.
Without player pressure I doubt he would have ever apologized, so before saying "get over it" realize there was a lesson in here for Smedley about his arrogance and he needed to learn it. Although.....
Smedley now can say, I said I was sorry, now get over it. (as some posters are saying in this thread)
Saying your sorry without actually "doing anything" or saying something to the effect "listen I'd love to do a roll out a classic server but my hands are tied because of ...." is a classic and lame example of saying something just to appease people.
I for one am glad that players walked from SWG, a company needs to be hit in the pocketbook hard in order to learn how to "treat" it's paying customers (Vanguard) {cough} .
Fully intends to make yet another Everquest game?!? How many versions of Norrath do we need? How about another SWG? One that doesn't stick us in a time limbo that can never move ahead with expansions because of the ever thumped Canon? They made mistakes with SWG...but it's an awesome alternative to the fantasy genre. I'm sick of elves, personally. I want a newer, better SWG, set ahead of the movies so we can move ahead with the expansions the way Norrath and every other mmorpg is allowed to do.
Finaly, they come to their sences... After 2 years, they finaly come to their sences. The NGE (NotGoodEnough) was the worst mistake that a company could make! Never ever will i play a game that has SOE involved with it..
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Before we blindly rush to "Move On" here, let's just take a moment to notice something. The EXACT thing that SWG veterans accused SOE of doing when the NGE came out, the EXACT thing - ignoring the players - Smedley now admits. But at the time they swore up and down on a stack of datachips that we didn't know what we were talking about, that players were duly consulted and begged for the NGE, that we were a bunch of un-constructive trolls and game-haters and ignoramuses and so on and so forth. Now, after the barn has burned down and the horse run away with the rancor, he admits we were right.
Let's be slightly more realistic. WoW shocked SOE with numbers for a US game, and SOE gambled everything to try and break that 300k barrier. They would have been happy to lose 75% of the players they already had in exchange for gaining a million or two new ones with dumbed-down eye candy. The "mistake" they made was to misunderstand why WoW was popular and/or to try and shoehorn an incompatible franchise into the same mold. So they didn't get their new millions, they just lost their old core. By now they must realize that SWG is basically done. So it's press spin time.
If SOE really wanted to be honest with themselves, they would admit that (1) they have no earthly (or un-Earthly) idea how to write a game as popular as WoW or Lineage; (2) they don't know HOW to listen to their players and turn that into constructive progress; (3) they have developed a poisonous post-Koster relationship with the fans, the press and the industry.
I think you just debunked yourself on many levels, i mean honestly, like you said there is Arrogance among these companys whic his what we saw with smedly in the past, now he has apologized.
Also like you said its been THREE years, the game is almost dead, and has such a small playerbase now, that him apologizing honestly wont make that many people happy (obviously).
I think this is an honest attempt to make things right and show that the future is going to be good for SOE, and that they arent going to make the same mistakes.
The whole "Not doing anything" Defense cant be said because Smed knows as we do that SWG is gone forever, and that the future is where the changes are going to happen with new games.
Just my 2 cents.
-Jive
Completely agree, you are a smart, smart man.
Just for giggles
As people keep repeating relentlessly (even after 3 years) I would return to SWG if they released a classic server. Now that Smed has finally admited (after 3 years) that they made a mistake.. my question is.. is it going to take another 3 years for them to release a classic server? probably but by then we will have lots of other alternative sci-fi mmo options and SWG will be a dead horse.
Bloody shame if you ask me.
Now SWG II, that would be tempting if they base it on pre nge gameplay and 2008+ graphics.
For what it is worth, apology accepted Mr. Smedley.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.