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Lucasarts called the shots with SWG and SOE cares about their fans
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Uh huh. I suppose if you mean selling them something and replacing it with something completely different or selling an expansion and changing the game the next day a good thing to do to family members then fine.
Jack wagons. The whole lot of 'em. Bunch of incompetent fools who think they know what they're doing.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Sorry I meant on tape. Most make music on CDs or MP3s etc now
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Interesting read. Really puts an end to the "George made them do it!" tinfoil hat crowd. Then again, that crowd will just say something along the lines of "George made him post it!".
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
They had do, LA ordered it. It was either not do it, and have SOE shut down SWG as LA pulled out, or do it.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
If it does not work out then they will not do it, but instead people are over reacting and getting themselves banned, and are then not heard by SOE.
At least if people do want to cancel their account, they will do, unlike SWTOR. I was only cancelling account to stop recurring payments coming out of my account, and to use timecards instead, but I was unable to cancel account until near the free 30 days was over.
SWTORs downtime is all over the place, and giving zero notice for EU players. They would announce downtime at 2 or 3am for 8am, and then it would get delayed as well. SOEs with SWG was not perfect but at least it was more predictable.
Point is, all companies are as bad as one another. To say SOE is bad and say EA are awesome, is just a joke
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Not really, how do you see that in it?
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Star Wars. With itself.
Its pretty simple...
EQ Mac is 100% owned by SOE. They decide to keep it up...
SWG was a licensed IP and they don't have that same scenario.
SOE does have a license still with LA for The Clone Wars (f2p) Star Wars game they run...
Its also in LA's interest to keep License agreements open because the more licensed games.. the more license fees they get.
So pretty much either SOE or LA was not going to really make money by keeping SWG open. Obviously even if SOE wanted to keep SWG open... they cannot force the IP owner to extend the license. We don't know the situation... but if the game was making money it was in the interest of both parties to keep it open... cash shop or sub.
The only "odd" part about the closure is the fact as Smedly said multiple times.. The SWG galaxy license extended into early 2012. Yet they decided to shut the game down mid December... they could have let it run until the license expired... why didn't they do that?
Sure the original date for TOR headstart was the same day.. dec 15th (later changed by bioware) but... If SWG made money.. SOE made money... LA made money off the license. So the easiest answer is they weren't really making money off the game.. and decided to close it.
They may not make money (might even lose it) by keeping the Mac server open.. but they do not have a license fee on top of that.
It's a cry for attention.
The other oddity is that they gave 6 months notice, and if they were not making any money of it would have made more sense to announce the closure a bit later, as when you announce the closure many people just bail on the game, especially a P2P one. Also at the time they announced the closure they locked Farstar and Chilastra to transfers in as servers grew in May and June and became full.
At that stage they were not making money because of it being on the free 45 days, but it would have been smarter to wait a month to see if they would sub, as if they did, they would have had more money than before. If people did not sub there would still be plenty time to announce its closure.
So with that I do not believe it was not making money, as SOE/LA did not know themselves at that stage.. LA just wanted it to close to prevent confusion with SWTOR, and they knew how lacking it was, and that people would go (back) to SWG once reached level 50 and realised there was not much to do
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Like SNG said...they gave us a 6 month heads up. That Killed Revenue after a certain point when the people that were not going to stick around for the end just up and left.
Plus with the KNOWN pending release of all 6 movies in 3D....Interest in SW MMO"s was going to skyrocket....I was planning on doing a few things at local game stores around Chicago to get the word out about the game...plus I heard someone was advertising on Craigs List for their Guild and Server...plus people on SS were sending emails to their Local 151st and Rebel Alliance Detachments to get the Info out about SW:G. The Population of the game was growing pre-Shutdown Notification. And it was going to keep growing even with TOR being released because people were going to play BOTH.
SOE never gives 6 months Notice for a Shut down. The Pending shutdown was announced June 2009 and they shut down the service at 00:00 August 1, 2009. Less than 90 days...
SOE was TOLD to shut down SW:G for what ever reasons...but they were made to do it. Conversely....Every MMO they have that they Own Outright in the fantasy genre....they've never shut down no matter how low the population has gotten..
IE: Vanguard
MMO History: 2528 days in SW:G
I must interject something here...
LucasArts calling the shots on SWG (more like controling the license of SW here, and wanting to have a good image for their IP) have NOTHING to do with whether SOE cares about their fans or not.
Your personal experience may be that SOE treated you well, and you may find some others that had the similar experience as you had with SOE. But there are just as many, if not more, players that felt they had been screwed by the treatments from SOE, some even with feelings of betrayal of various incidents with SOE and their games (the NGE being just one of them...)
As for the NGE, LucasArts may had the final say in that incident, but SOE is not without fault. SOE sold an expansion that contains contents which were deemed USELESS when the changes hit. How's that for "cares about their fans"? The link to Jeff Freeman's own admission on NGE should show that they are actually proud of what they created (even though the fans at the time hated it.) When they put it on the TC, almost everyone who tested the NGE wrote on the forum that NGE was not ready, and they would prefer SOE to keep working on it until the fans can agree it's ready. And that's not counting those who flat-out wrote that NGE screwed up the Pre-CU/CU gameplay, and do not belong in SWG. What did SOE do? went ahead as planned. Oh, and NGE only had 12 ~ 14 days of TC time, and throughout that two weeks, fans were infuriated by SOE's unwilling to listen, and lack of respect for their fans and customers. They gave no reason as to why they cannot delay the NGE to continue to work on it, and that why have an expansion out when contents inside will be USELESS when the NGE comes around...
Both companies here are at fault for various issues, so to resolve SOE's involvement while shift the blame solely on LucasArts is just not objectively viewing the shut-down of SWG.
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
The reason the NGE did not get delayed was because LA wanted it out by a set date, when the Starter Pack was released
Lucasarts on the NGE here and here
GameSpy: A majority of readers expressed that they felt duped into preordering the Trials of Obi-Wan expansion, due to the NGE not being announced till after the game's release. How would you like to respond to this?
Julio Torres was also producer for KOTOR and The Force Unleashed and worked for LA (not SOE)
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Even so, SOE could've said to their fan that due to licensing with LucasArts, they cannot delay the release, which would help the players and fans to understand their position. That was not the case. SOE was silent on this issue. SOE may not be able to say anything since they may be violating their licensing contract with LucasArts. But they made no attempt to listen to the players during that two weeks of NGE on TC.
As for Julio Torres's answer to Trials of Obi-Wan expansion incident, that still did not explain the issue behind SOE's "commitment" to continue to improve the CU while developing NGE in-house (as pointed out by Jeff Freeman). Also, as you pointed out Julio Torres was working for LucasArts, so what he said has to reflect LucasArts, but what about SOE's point of view?
So like I said, BOTH company are at fault (in NGE, and in shutting down SWG), and your premise of SOE cares about their fan is questionable.
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
SOE stayed silent no doubt due to confidentiality agreements with LA. If they could say stuff they would say stuff. The fact of SOE not listening is BS, they fact they did not do anything was because their hands were tied with LA. Tiggs (and probably other staff too) lost their jobs from trying to "save the day"
Julio Torres was not just speaking on behlaf of LA, but SOE as well. He said "It was never the intention of anyone at LucasArts or SOE...."
Why would Julio Torres keep publicy talking about the NGE when it was to do with SOE? He knew the reaction of the NGE as in the interviews said that people would return once got over the shock. If it was SOEs brainchild he would have gotten Smedley to go discuss it instead
SOE being responsible for it, and it being BOTH companies is questonable, but them caring is only questionable because that iwa what you want to believe and the whole truth will never be known because of confidentiality agreements. You will never see EA save a game from closure (they will shut the game down at the first opportunity) or probably any other company for that matter.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
However Freeman wasnt looking for alternatives just on his own. It was his job to seek out alternatives. So while the mechanics of the NGE may have been his, the concept of having a NGE was certainly not his. And this comes from Raph Koster who said the NGE was NOT Freeman's initiative.
Anti-SoE will jump on whatever they can to believe that SoE was at full fault.
Yet you make an enormously huge assumption that SoE had a choice.
And why shouldnt programmers be proud of something they worked hard on on a tight timeline? Freeman's role in the NGE was the combat, and guess what, the combat WAS better (subjective, but the combat wasnt the reason why the NGE killed SWG). The other crap about the NGE that was why it sucked? Not Freeman's doing. He wasnt responsible for the iconic class bullshit that was the reason why the NGE was so hated.
Maybe you should go look at Smedley's twitter before posting on this topic....
That is what people do not get. The IDEA around the NGE wasnt SOE it was Lucas Arts SOE did what they were TOLD to do buy a company that had the right to tell them what to do based on the contract they SIGNED to use the star wars IP.
I think a lot of the hate that SOE has been given over the years is unwarranted. They're not perfect and have made some major mistakes over the years but I do think they are a company that cares about it's fan base. It's just too bad that you had the SWG fiasco and maybe they should have put more resources into games like Vanguard: Saga of Heroes but they could have easily (and probably should have) killed that game off a long time ago but they haven't. I think that says something about them.
The one where he said they were listening? Why? He lies more than anyone at SOE. Remember his claim that there would be MONTHLY content update for DCUO because "that's what people paying a sub deserve"?
Smedley will say anything. I don't believe a word the man types.
You may experience customer services from SOE differently than others, and I can accept it that your opinion is that SOE "cares about their fans". But I do disagree with your opinion, hence my interjection, and trying to be as objective as I can.
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
SOE cares about fans? Since when? What a load of crap.
They've EARNED their reputation.
To suggest otherwise is ignorant.
When vanguards F2P starts and if people start playing it again and the game starts getting updates I expect an apology from everyone who bashed SOE for saving the game and keeping it going.
The truth is SOE kept it going and part of it was so they could add another game on the station pass which btw is the best deal any mmo company has ever offered 9 games for 15$ a month if you pay yearly and PS2 + EQNext will be included in it so aslong as they dont close anymore games thats 11 games for 15$ a month. SOE made alot of mistakes but no company offers the content and variety they offer.