Regardless of the proper alignment in facts there, I totally agree! I actually have not suffered this 'amnesia', like so many others. I love and prefer sandbox and open world games, but if there is anything I have no doubt about, it's that SoE needs to stop making MMOs. Period.
??? Why??
I see two possibilities for this statement:
You would like SOE to concentrate on some other kind of game
You would like to see them go out of business thus putting 1,000+ people out of a job and causing a loss in overall capital to be invested in MMOs
Which is it? Or do you have a third possibility.
I'd love to be more diplomatic here, but it only really needs a brief sum up. They suck. EQ was great, SWG was great for a while. I've played all their games until they started pumping out F2P for extra cash. They look desperate, and what's worse, they look like a fool because they can't even do that right. If you think I'm just targeting SoE, no, I'd say EA is just as bad. Whether large scale or small, any MMO after UO that they did, just couldn't stand up right anymore. They butchered the later version of that game. The same could even be said of Funcom, but look, I digress.
Why don't we just leave it to being like a relationship, that you repeatedly get burned in.
Regardless of the proper alignment in facts there, I totally agree! I actually have not suffered this 'amnesia', like so many others. I love and prefer sandbox and open world games, but if there is anything I have no doubt about, it's that SoE needs to stop making MMOs. Period.
??? Why??
I see two possibilities for this statement:
You would like SOE to concentrate on some other kind of game
You would like to see them go out of business thus putting 1,000+ people out of a job and causing a loss in overall capital to be invested in MMOs
Which is it? Or do you have a third possibility.
I'd love to be more diplomatic here, but it only really needs a brief sum up. They suck. EQ was great, SWG was great for a while. I've played all their games until they started pumping out F2P for extra cash. They look desperate, and what's worse, they look like a fool because they can't even do that right. If you think I'm just targeting SoE, no, I'd say EA is just as bad. Whether large scale or small, any MMO after UO that they did, just couldn't stand up right anymore. They butchered the later version of that game. The same could even be said of Funcom, but look, I digress.
Why don't we just leave it to being like a relationship, that you repeatedly get burned in.
If SOE were to stop trying to make MMO's that gaming world would be more at a loss than a gain. SOE spends as much as it makes. It's a big company and without them doing bad games, good games or whatever there would not be the jobs or the opportunity for people to get into the industry and thus we would not find talent.
You have to have big companies that people hate just so there is money to be spent on hiring talented creative people. Blizzard produced what some might say a better MMO. I'm not one of those people, but Blizzard isn't as big of a company and EA has given up on MMO's, so to wish SOE would stop, means wishing MMO's would take an immediate turn for the worse and a much slower pace of development.
Regardless of the proper alignment in facts there, I totally agree! I actually have not suffered this 'amnesia', like so many others. I love and prefer sandbox and open world games, but if there is anything I have no doubt about, it's that SoE needs to stop making MMOs. Period.
??? Why??
I see two possibilities for this statement:
You would like SOE to concentrate on some other kind of game
You would like to see them go out of business thus putting 1,000+ people out of a job and causing a loss in overall capital to be invested in MMOs
Which is it? Or do you have a third possibility.
I'd love to be more diplomatic here, but it only really needs a brief sum up. They suck. EQ was great, SWG was great for a while. I've played all their games until they started pumping out F2P for extra cash. They look desperate, and what's worse, they look like a fool because they can't even do that right. If you think I'm just targeting SoE, no, I'd say EA is just as bad. Whether large scale or small, any MMO after UO that they did, just couldn't stand up right anymore. They butchered the later version of that game. The same could even be said of Funcom, but look, I digress.
Why don't we just leave it to being like a relationship, that you repeatedly get burned in.
If SOE were to stop trying to make MMO's that gaming world would be more at a loss than a gain. SOE spends as much as it makes. It's a big company and without them doing bad games, good games or whatever there would not be the jobs or the opportunity for people to get into the industry and thus we would not find talent.
You have to have big companies that people hate just so there is money to be spent on hiring talented creative people. Blizzard produced what some might say a better MMO. I'm not one of those people, but Blizzard isn't as big of a company and EA has given up on MMO's, so to wish SOE would stop, means wishing MMO's would take an immediate turn for the worse and a much slower pace of development.
I don't think MMO only studios are very viable. SOE has always been plagued by poor management (Smedley), he isn't going to go anywhere, they aren't doing well as a company in my opinion given how many of their games have failed, how many have been shut down, and how all of them had to abandon subscriptions.
If SOE dropped out of the industry others would take its place. Bethesda is now making MMO's (my god I hope it cures of them of their tendency to release everything in a bugged state, cause that doesn't go well in MMOland), and many new companies are testing the MMO waters on the consoles.
These are real big companies that can actually invest the money needed to make a proper AAA MMO without selling out to private investors and co-publishers who demand a quick return on their cash.
Also blizzard is a much more stable, larger, and has much deeper pockets than SOE. They probably weren't prior to the release of WoW, but then again SOE is not the same company or nearly as powerful as it was back then at all.
Regardless of the proper alignment in facts there, I totally agree! I actually have not suffered this 'amnesia', like so many others. I love and prefer sandbox and open world games, but if there is anything I have no doubt about, it's that SoE needs to stop making MMOs. Period.
??? Why??
I see two possibilities for this statement:
You would like SOE to concentrate on some other kind of game
You would like to see them go out of business thus putting 1,000+ people out of a job and causing a loss in overall capital to be invested in MMOs
Which is it? Or do you have a third possibility.
I'd love to be more diplomatic here, but it only really needs a brief sum up. They suck. EQ was great, SWG was great for a while. I've played all their games until they started pumping out F2P for extra cash. They look desperate, and what's worse, they look like a fool because they can't even do that right. If you think I'm just targeting SoE, no, I'd say EA is just as bad. Whether large scale or small, any MMO after UO that they did, just couldn't stand up right anymore. They butchered the later version of that game. The same could even be said of Funcom, but look, I digress.
Why don't we just leave it to being like a relationship, that you repeatedly get burned in.
If SOE were to stop trying to make MMO's that gaming world would be more at a loss than a gain. SOE spends as much as it makes. It's a big company and without them doing bad games, good games or whatever there would not be the jobs or the opportunity for people to get into the industry and thus we would not find talent.
You have to have big companies that people hate just so there is money to be spent on hiring talented creative people. Blizzard produced what some might say a better MMO. I'm not one of those people, but Blizzard isn't as big of a company and EA has given up on MMO's, so to wish SOE would stop, means wishing MMO's would take an immediate turn for the worse and a much slower pace of development.
I've yet to see SoE contribute anything ground breaking in MMOs in a very long time. Just to get your foot in the door to be a designer does not require doing MMOs. SoE making games is fine, however, making MMOs is an entirely different story. They've proved time and time again, they just don't have the guns to compete in the MMO market, and unfortunately, many do not. If they did, we'd see something amazing by now. This isn't just on SoE, but they certainly don't help 'freshen' up the place, so to speak.
What other choice do mmo gamers have? I dont think its "falling" rather "hoping" cuz mmo games suck atm. All the new ones stink and the old ones are getting older. People want that next big thing and mybe soe will do it maybe not but what other choices do we have, soe may be our only hope RIGHT NOW. Who knows what will pop up in 2-3 years but theres nothing now and we need something now.
He might as well be claiming the universe is geocentric. Thankfully, there are those in the universe who know and acknowledge that was proven false many centuries ago - similar with this case. Many just don't have the education and/or the experience to interpret data correctly.
And yet in higher physics, there are stacks of books written and being written to validate both heliocentric and geocentric theories. Neither are "proven" true or false, only accepted as "the more likely model or theory."
Looks like its time for you to step off your high horse and hit those books.
During the development of APW for Vanguard (AFTER SOE TOOK OVER) there were many developers working on the game, you can see their names referenced in the bosses there. I talked to many of them on the test server. Over the time I was SUBSCRIBED to the game along with many other people.
Back when the game had more than one server.
Back when the game had people paying for it every month.
Way back then... they decided to shuffle the development team to EQ2 and other titles, then add in some interns from EQ2 and a community manager who became lead devs. Then most of them even left, it was bad enough when Sillius was put in charge and ran the game into the ground with his absolute mockery of any lore people had clearly worked very hard to establish or serious nature of the game's design instead turning the game into one big "Sillius joke", but hell they even shipped him off and gave us a new director that was pretty much only in charge of himself as he was the only one left working on the game.
I know people who still play Vanguard, I'm glad they are finally getting content again. I just don't understand why SOE had to bleed the game dry when they did have subscribers. There is no way the population of the game is even close to what it was when APW was in its heyday. I was hardly greedy, I gave them plenty of time patiently paying my subscription and supporting the game. I brought friends into the game telling them how much it had improved, but they stripped the dev team long before the game had its final and (imo) fatal flop following BoD and PoTA's introduction (which were long delayed, and very lackluster, again in my opinion).
They left no hope, and so me and many people I played with unsubscribed.
I don't think Vanguard is a bad game, if a cash shop is what it takes to make it work and them to develop content for it then at least I'm happy for my friends who continue to play it. But these to me are bad business practices. It is "bait and switch" for Smedley to promise support for Vanguard DESPITE its unpopularity and declining sub numbers at the time of the aquisition. To run campaigns to get people to come back to Vanguard with the promise that they had fixed it and will now support it and expansions would come.
You can blame that on the game not being successful enough, and not enough people playing it. Hell I'm sure that is Smedley's excuse, but that is HIS failing as an executive not mine as a paying player. He promised me support and didn't deliver. He did the same thing with Planetside, SWG and the same thing with MxO. SOE made those games fail, not the players.
Now all their games are f2p with cash shops, and I'm not happy about that either.
Make excuses for them all you want, they failed and Smedley won't ever own up to it and step down to get his rightful punishment of being fired by cannon into the sun.
I played vanguard from launch, until they added the 55+ level cap. You are clearly a confused person when it comes to VG. SOE put a team of people on the project, and when they finished adding APW they moved most of the team to EQ2, which was a bigger money maker. You seem to think that any* amount of players on an MMO warrants a full staff. I'm sorry, but by the time APW launched, there were what? a handful of servers? Each with a prime time population of 500 to 700 players, if that? I'm not sure why you think Vanguard deserved more than what it got in terms of Dev attention. The fact that SOE even brought on a decent team to add in all the APW raid content was amazing.
Smedley didn't go back on his word. As bad as VG turned out to be, he did continue to support it. The game still gets updates and bug fixes to this day and it's still live. The amount of support the game is getting is more than proportional to the fanbase it has. Plain and simple. I'd argue that it gets more support than it deserves.
Planetside didn't "fail".
F2P brings in more players and money. You might not like it, but I don't really see the difference between paying $60 for a game, and paying $15 a month subscription and getting to try a game for free and putting $15 or $20 a month in a cash shop. At least with the F2P game, if you don't like it you can stop playing and you didn't lose $60 bucks right off the bat.
You assume that Sony would be stupid enough to invest in and develop a game with no say so whatsoever? You're the one sounding foolish my friend. What company in their right mind would let the IP holder dictate the business decisions when they are only there for IP integrity and no actual financial investment or obligation other than to get their royalties? SOE would have gone out of business a long time ago if they actually did things the way you paint them.
SOE has some say depending on how the negotiations ended up and how the legal documents are written. The thing is that the Star Wars IP is an extremely hard IP to deal with, and the license needs to be renewed. Upsetting or refusing to compromise (or even completely bend to) a licensor would be a disaster.)
SOE had an extremely small amount of input when it came to NGE.
What company would let a licensor do this? A company that made a game completely based on that specific IP. If the NFL told EA's Madden team that they wanted something, EA would jump through hoops to appease them and do as they wish, because a football game without the NFL license would be trash and wouldn't sell.
In SOE SWG case, LA got what LA wanted. If they had denied LA their demands, LA would have not renewed the license and then the entire game would have had to be recreated from the ground up to not use any Star Wars IP, or shut it down when the license expired.
When it comes to some games, licenses may not be a big deal. For example, not getting licensed to use real world gun models in your game (M4, M16, M240b) isn't a huge deal because you can just change the name and tweak the looks a tiny bit (as many games often do). However, when you game is completely based on an IP, the licensor owns you. That's why so many companies try to create original IPs and stick to stuff they own or create.
Take some classes on game design. They cover all this in the freshmen year.
Wasting your breath on that one, Gallus.
He might as well be claiming the universe is geocentric. Thankfully, there are those in the universe who know and acknowledge that was proven false many centuries ago - similar with this case. Many just don't have the education and/or the experience to interpret data correctly.
I agree. His arguments have ranged from insane to childish. He clearly can't comprehend the topic at hand.
Vanguard was being funded by Microsoft before SOE put money into it. The game was taking to long in development and so dropped the game. SOE took it up and gave Smedly money to finish it.
He was forced to release the game to early and this is what made Vanguard suffer a poor launch. The game itself and its core mechanics were sound the game lore was brilliant. Then Smedly left the development of Vanguard and SOE messed it up.
As for SWG and the NGE Lucas arts pushed for it because they wanted to beat Blizzard with their WoW crown and run with it. All it showed was you can not drastically change a live mmo and think the players will like it. The forums were alight with comments from players asking for the NGE to never go live. The day after it went live the servers were dead, I know this because on the Farstar server I saw it happen.
i frankly don't want to read all 27 pages on this thread, so i will ask simply:
could someone please provide the hard evidence that LA was behind the NGE changes and not SOE?
i am not saying that the claim is false, i just want to get to the bottom of this argument and it seems that there is a substantial lack of hard evidence on both sides.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
i frankly don't want to read all 27 pages on this thread, so i will ask simply:
could someone please provide the hard evidence that LA was behind the NGE changes and not SOE?
i am not saying that the claim is false, i just want to get to the bottom of this argument and it seems that there is a substantial lack of hard evidence on both sides.
Originally posted by Doogiehowser
Originally posted by Burntvet
Originally posted by Doogiehowser
Originally posted by Burntvet The thing with the MacIntyre statement was made well AFTER the NGE changes were done and all in place, and as part of the damage control that was going on at the time. Just because this particular time, it was an LA producer saying the same/similar thing as the SOE people had already said, does not mean that LA was wholly responsible for the decision (granted, she was a bit more candid about what the collective "they" wanted to do). All it means is that one of the co-publishers (LA), was saying the same/similar things to what the other co-publisher was and had said. Both Freeman and Rubenfeld speak to what was going on behind the curtain. (And it was even Freeman himself that came up with and pushed the terrible combat changes in the NGE, he said that, explicitly. No mention of LA saying "do this" or "do that" at all.)
No it means that LA had full control over their license and nothing changes in the game without them giving it a green light. That is why i gave example of Warhammer IP to show that companies don't let anyone just do whatever they desire with their IP's. To say it was just 'SOE's decision and completely their fault' is just absurd.
I did not say it was solely SOE's fault for the decision. That was a joint decision between the two, because it had to be, contractually. What was SOE fault was the design, implementation, and coding. LA did none of that... they simply approved of changing the game into a more simplified, themepark experience in an attempt to get more customers, that SOE proposed. All the rest is on SOE, because they DID it.
People who have an axe to grind with SOE have already made up their mind. It is a lynch mob mentality really and no amount of proof is going to change that. Even the statement given by Nancy has been shrugged off as nothing more than a 'damage control'. Even though she openly admits that 'we' LA studio took the decisions for making radical changes. Even word of the lead producer isn't good enough but we are somehow suppossed to believe some random posters on message board.
I agree with others, mods need to burn down this topic because it was never made for having prudent and reasonable discussion and after 20 pages it is still the same.
Originally posted by Doogiehowser
You are amazingly stubborn. So that article where Nancy openly admits the reason why NGE was released means nothing? even though she uses the word 'we' repeatedly?
And how many times people have to explain to you that ofcourse Smedly will take the responsibility not LA? Smedly is face of SOE and he was always going to take the fall for it. You were also told many many times over 20 pages that SOE can not take decisions on its own. It is LA who takes decisions and SOE follows.
It is amazing how stubborn you are...online ego is a big deal i guess. When she says 'we' over and over again obviously she is talking about LA since they are the decision makers not SOE.
Nancy MacIntyre, the game's senior director at LucasArts, responded to the changes in the game and the angry objections by disgruntled players. I quote her remarks from the article at length, since, um, you have to see them to believe them.
Ms. MacIntyre: "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."
I don't know much more crystal clear it can get? but oh no she has to say 'We forced NGE on SOE' otherwise it was all SOE's decision. Do you know how liscensing works? i will give you an example of Game Workshop. Nothing in Warhammer MMO happened without their agreement.They have full control over Warhammer and no company can add an inch without consulting them.
What makes you think a company as huge as LA would just let SOE do whatever they desire?
Of course you can, like others in this thread, continue to deny that the LA statement makes it clear that they made the call about their IP. Or you can like me accept that the owner of the IP had an agenda and SOE (and Smed) had to go along or face problems with LA who have a reputation for enforcing their control of their IP in the courts if necessary.
i frankly don't want to read all 27 pages on this thread, so i will ask simply:
could someone please provide the hard evidence that LA was behind the NGE changes and not SOE?
i am not saying that the claim is false, i just want to get to the bottom of this argument and it seems that there is a substantial lack of hard evidence on both sides.
you need to read the thread so you can read the link that has the guy from LA saying why they wanted to make the changes.
Microsoft has billions of dollars... Why can't they simply just allow a good game to be developed and launched properly? Vanguard had such potential!!! GRR!!!
I remember when it launched and didn't run on my computer, it took all this time and a much more powerful computer to run it properly ... *sigh*
I'm grateful that Sony took Vanguard, the game is still fun to play around on...
If only Microsoft would do something great like fund an awesome MMO instead of supporting that failure search engine Bing, and designing lame OS like Windows 8...
In response to those who continue to believe that my statements regarding the NGE are inaccurate and that Smedley / SOE were not responsible can refer to the link below where Smedley takes full responsibility for the CU and NGE, never once suggesting that LA was involved.
President of Sony Online Entertainment John Smedley has apologised for decisions made on the direction of Star Wars Galaxies, describing then as "stupid" and a "complete and utter fail".
Smedley defended the decision at the time, citing the need to revamp the game in order to stem the loss of subscribers the game was suffering. Instead, however, the updates sparked in-game demonstrations and further player exoduses. Sony subsequently offered refunds to players who bought the Trials Of Obi-Wan expansion as it was released two days prior to the implementation of NGE.
"Stupid decisions," Smedley wrote in response to a question from a user, "Complete and utter fail and I am very sorry."
I've got as far as this and got bored with your comments, not sure what your trying to prove here apart from trolling. You show me a company who have not made mistakes in business and made money from day one. IMO what SOE have done has been very impressive. Have they made bad games, sure and like many other MMO companies will do so again.
But what they have done is support their games going forward more and more. I played EQI II and even Vanguard, I still play Vanguard today and the amount of love going into this game is growing daily. They have a team working it and the forums are active with what they are doing and feed-back. For them to still have a very active community tells you they have done something right all these 14 or so years.
I spent eight years in EQI and played EQII for about two years as I was disappointed it was little different from EQI and more grind than EQI. But in them days we knew little more as there were only a few games of this type around. EQI had a massive community which created lots of friends all around the world and for me this was the start of my MMO gaming life and all the crap that has followed EQI imo has never or will never replace the RISK for Reward that this game brought.
Now as for the hype this and another site are the only ones hyping EQN, SOE has not given it the full double barrels and the reason for this is that it will be shown to the fans first for their loyalty at SOE live in August and I think that's a nice touch personally, rewarding them for staying and supporting them for years.
If anyone on here thinks the next MMO will be all singing and dancing with a flawless start and no bugs then they are living in cuckoo land. The one thing I see from MMO games is it has a cancer of moaners who complain about every little thing without really having a good reason to complain. While I accept the NGE fail was a fair reason to voice concerns and as I only beta tested SWG and felt it was a poor game so never played the final product as I felt it was weak and would not last long and ended up being proved right sadly.
I for one salute SOE for trying things in this tough market place and had it not been for the likes of SOE then the likes of Blizzard might not of even seen the light of day. The sad thing is about folk holding a grudge is because they lost the love they liked, many games get changes and not always for the good. But the developers know what they want from their games and they know best when it comes to balancing. many people dislike balancing but when you want new content then it has to be balanced and this is the most complained thing in all MMO's but folks just don't see what's gone on behind the scenes.
The bottom line is no matter how much you or I comment on the good, the bad, or the ugly SOE will be here long after you or I leave this spinning planet so if your not a fan, then stop wasting time moaning about things which you have no control over and trying to influence people due to your bad experiences. YOU don't have to invest time or money into this company if you feel so strongly about them, however you have and I cannot get my head round why you bothered.
Fifteen years of gaming has taught me one thing, there are some really nice people out there who are bored and love moaning as do I every now and then. But I would not be on these boards had it not been for SOE and other games like UO or Asheron's Call. I for one hope that Smed has managed to create a new monster EQN and know it will never replace my times in EQI but if it manages to be a combination of all the good bits from other games past and present then it could make me return to MMO'ing days I so miss.
This game will tank we all know it. However it will leave the door ajar for other development teams to peak inside and view the pro verbal yearning of the sandbox mmorpg genre. SWG, Vanguard, Ps2 among others.
Some argue ps2 is great, but those are the people that love a dumber down version of Battlefield 3.They completely ruined what made ps1 great, gutted it and gave it to the casuals. Hence why ever since it launched its been losing population. So many problems with the game but I give them credit to at least attempting to fix the problem. Just about all the veterans from Ps1 quit because its a fragest fps with grind.
EQ-next will tote genre shattering game play, elements, and features, but it will all be word play to captivate you. Hopefully in 5 years we will see development of great sandbox titles.
This game will tank we all know it. However it will leave the door ajar for other development teams to peak inside and view the pro verbal yearning of the sandbox mmorpg genre. SWG, Vanguard, Ps2 among others.
Some argue ps2 is great, but those are the people that love a dumber down version of Battlefield 3.They completely ruined what made ps1 great, gutted it and gave it to the casuals. Hence why ever since it launched its been losing population. So many problems with the game but I give them credit to at least attempting to fix the problem. Just about all the veterans from Ps1 quit because its a fragest fps with grind.
EQ-next will tote genre shattering game play, elements, and features, but it will all be word play to captivate you. Hopefully in 5 years we will see development of great sandbox titles.
I keep hearing this but yt we know nothing of the game other then vague terms, where as we have tons and tons of positive info on FFXIV
I don't understand how one can ignore all the positive info, and grasp onto something so vague that no one actuly ahs any idea what it is.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
Originally posted by Caldrin Originally posted by aspekxi frankly don't want to read all 27 pages on this thread, so i will ask simply:could someone please provide the hard evidence that LA was behind the NGE changes and not SOE? i am not saying that the claim is false, i just want to get to the bottom of this argument and it seems that there is a substantial lack of hard evidence on both sides.
you need to read the thread so you can read the link that has the guy from LA saying why they wanted to make the changes.
Oh goodness. There are links to both LA and SOE saying they wanted the changes.
The truth is that both companies wanted to do something, because they knew that SWG was going to start losing players, and that if they didn't change something, it wouldn't stop. There is no way to know who was the first to say it, but they both knew it, and they were both on board with the changes.
Both share the responsibility, because both had to agree to the NGE for it to happen.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by craftseeker Of course you can, like others in this thread, continue to deny that the LA statement makes it clear that they made the call about their IP. Or you can like me accept that the owner of the IP had an agenda and SOE (and Smed) had to go along or face problems with LA who have a reputation for enforcing their control of their IP in the courts if necessary.
The problem with this point of view is that there is no evidence that SOE wasn't in agreement with LA. Everything points to SOE being on board with the changes. Whether LA or SOE was the first to make the decision doesn't matter. It was a team effort.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by aspekxi frankly don't want to read all 27 pages on this thread, so i will ask simply:could someone please provide the hard evidence that LA was behind the NGE changes and not SOE? i am not saying that the claim is false, i just want to get to the bottom of this argument and it seems that there is a substantial lack of hard evidence on both sides.
you need to read the thread so you can read the link that has the guy from LA saying why they wanted to make the changes.
Oh goodness. There are links to both LA and SOE saying they wanted the changes.
The truth is that both companies wanted to do something, because they knew that SWG was going to start losing players, and that if they didn't change something, it wouldn't stop. There is no way to know who was the first to say it, but they both knew it, and they were both on board with the changes.
Both share the responsibility, because both had to agree to the NGE for it to happen.
The link regarding SOE simply shows Sedley taking fall for the NGE. Nowhere it shows that it was his idea. However the statement by nancy the lead producer from LA show that it was there idea and she even stated the reasons for it.
Moreover when a company like LA tells you to make changes you can not simply say no just like how you can not say no to Game Workshop who is largely responsible for ruining Warhammer Online with too many restrictions and their notorious control over their IP.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Not so many years ago SOE, at John Smedley's direction, gutted and ruined SWG, basically causing a legendary mass exodus from the game.
A few years later, SOE aquires Sigil games and forces the premature release of Vanguard, which was regarded by many to be one of the worst launches of any major MMO.
At the time of Vanguard's release (arguably the first iteration of EQN), Smedley promised long term support and upcoming expansion packs. We all know how that went.
So how is it that everyone is suddenly so confident that EQN will be such a great game? Do the words "Everquest" and "sandbox" mentioned in the same sentence suddenly activate a chemical in the brain that causes selective amnesia?
I agree whole heartedly there is going to be a lot of sad panda faces around these parts once they see what the game is really like.
PS. Smedley is a dinosaur and so are his ideas, need some young blood coming up with the new innovative ideas.
"The King and the Pawn return to the same box at the end of the game"
Originally posted by Doogiehowser Originally posted by lizardbonesOriginally posted by CaldrinOriginally posted by aspekxi frankly don't want to read all 27 pages on this thread, so i will ask simply:could someone please provide the hard evidence that LA was behind the NGE changes and not SOE? i am not saying that the claim is false, i just want to get to the bottom of this argument and it seems that there is a substantial lack of hard evidence on both sides.
you need to read the thread so you can read the link that has the guy from LA saying why they wanted to make the changes. Oh goodness. There are links to both LA and SOE saying they wanted the changes. The truth is that both companies wanted to do something, because they knew that SWG was going to start losing players, and that if they didn't change something, it wouldn't stop. There is no way to know who was the first to say it, but they both knew it, and they were both on board with the changes. Both share the responsibility, because both had to agree to the NGE for it to happen. The link regarding SOE simply shows Sedley taking fall for the NGE. Nowhere it shows that it was his idea. However the statement by nancy the lead producer from LA show that it was there idea and she even stated the reasons for it.
Moreover when a company like LA tells you to make changes you can not simply say no just like how you can not say no to Game Workshop who is largely responsible for ruining Warhammer Online with too many restrictions and their notorious control over their IP.
You're making a leap of faith from "things that are known" to "things believed".
If SOE was not on board with the changes, there would have been drama surrounding the NGE before it released. There wasn't, it just popped up out of the aether, fully formed and ready to go. If SOE thought players wouldn't get behind it and that it would tank the game, they could have made a case for it, but they didn't. Not to the players, not to the press, not through any "surprise leaks", nothing. They thought it would work exactly the way LA thought it would work.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
SoE have taken loads of bad decision, but still if I had to rank the 5 best mmorpgs I have played, more than half of them has the SoE logo. No doubt EqNext can be a horrible fail, but also if anyone could pull it off it would be SoE, and I don't really see any other game devs showing better promises at the moment.. for my taste.
Originally posted by aspekxi frankly don't want to read all 27 pages on this thread, so i will ask simply:could someone please provide the hard evidence that LA was behind the NGE changes and not SOE? i am not saying that the claim is false, i just want to get to the bottom of this argument and it seems that there is a substantial lack of hard evidence on both sides.
you need to read the thread so you can read the link that has the guy from LA saying why they wanted to make the changes.
Oh goodness. There are links to both LA and SOE saying they wanted the changes. The truth is that both companies wanted to do something, because they knew that SWG was going to start losing players, and that if they didn't change something, it wouldn't stop. There is no way to know who was the first to say it, but they both knew it, and they were both on board with the changes. Both share the responsibility, because both had to agree to the NGE for it to happen.
The link regarding SOE simply shows Sedley taking fall for the NGE. Nowhere it shows that it was his idea. However the statement by nancy the lead producer from LA show that it was there idea and she even stated the reasons for it.
Moreover when a company like LA tells you to make changes you can not simply say no just like how you can not say no to Game Workshop who is largely responsible for ruining Warhammer Online with too many restrictions and their notorious control over their IP.
You're making a leap of faith from "things that are known" to "things believed".
If SOE was not on board with the changes, there would have been drama surrounding the NGE before it released. There wasn't, it just popped up out of the aether, fully formed and ready to go. If SOE thought players wouldn't get behind it and that it would tank the game, they could have made a case for it, but they didn't. Not to the players, not to the press, not through any "surprise leaks", nothing. They thought it would work exactly the way LA thought it would work.
I don't think anyone here has denied that SOE isn't involved but premises of OP's post is that SOE is solely responsible for NGE. If you read my previous posts and others who have been posting links, you would know that we never said that SOE didn't screw up in past but when the lead producer of LA id admitting that NGE was their idea, there isn't much argument left.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Comments
I'd love to be more diplomatic here, but it only really needs a brief sum up. They suck. EQ was great, SWG was great for a while. I've played all their games until they started pumping out F2P for extra cash. They look desperate, and what's worse, they look like a fool because they can't even do that right. If you think I'm just targeting SoE, no, I'd say EA is just as bad. Whether large scale or small, any MMO after UO that they did, just couldn't stand up right anymore. They butchered the later version of that game. The same could even be said of Funcom, but look, I digress.
Why don't we just leave it to being like a relationship, that you repeatedly get burned in.
If SOE were to stop trying to make MMO's that gaming world would be more at a loss than a gain. SOE spends as much as it makes. It's a big company and without them doing bad games, good games or whatever there would not be the jobs or the opportunity for people to get into the industry and thus we would not find talent.
You have to have big companies that people hate just so there is money to be spent on hiring talented creative people. Blizzard produced what some might say a better MMO. I'm not one of those people, but Blizzard isn't as big of a company and EA has given up on MMO's, so to wish SOE would stop, means wishing MMO's would take an immediate turn for the worse and a much slower pace of development.
I don't think MMO only studios are very viable. SOE has always been plagued by poor management (Smedley), he isn't going to go anywhere, they aren't doing well as a company in my opinion given how many of their games have failed, how many have been shut down, and how all of them had to abandon subscriptions.
If SOE dropped out of the industry others would take its place. Bethesda is now making MMO's (my god I hope it cures of them of their tendency to release everything in a bugged state, cause that doesn't go well in MMOland), and many new companies are testing the MMO waters on the consoles.
These are real big companies that can actually invest the money needed to make a proper AAA MMO without selling out to private investors and co-publishers who demand a quick return on their cash.
Also blizzard is a much more stable, larger, and has much deeper pockets than SOE. They probably weren't prior to the release of WoW, but then again SOE is not the same company or nearly as powerful as it was back then at all.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
I've yet to see SoE contribute anything ground breaking in MMOs in a very long time. Just to get your foot in the door to be a designer does not require doing MMOs. SoE making games is fine, however, making MMOs is an entirely different story. They've proved time and time again, they just don't have the guns to compete in the MMO market, and unfortunately, many do not. If they did, we'd see something amazing by now. This isn't just on SoE, but they certainly don't help 'freshen' up the place, so to speak.
And yet in higher physics, there are stacks of books written and being written to validate both heliocentric and geocentric theories. Neither are "proven" true or false, only accepted as "the more likely model or theory."
Looks like its time for you to step off your high horse and hit those books.
I played vanguard from launch, until they added the 55+ level cap. You are clearly a confused person when it comes to VG. SOE put a team of people on the project, and when they finished adding APW they moved most of the team to EQ2, which was a bigger money maker. You seem to think that any* amount of players on an MMO warrants a full staff. I'm sorry, but by the time APW launched, there were what? a handful of servers? Each with a prime time population of 500 to 700 players, if that? I'm not sure why you think Vanguard deserved more than what it got in terms of Dev attention. The fact that SOE even brought on a decent team to add in all the APW raid content was amazing.
Smedley didn't go back on his word. As bad as VG turned out to be, he did continue to support it. The game still gets updates and bug fixes to this day and it's still live. The amount of support the game is getting is more than proportional to the fanbase it has. Plain and simple. I'd argue that it gets more support than it deserves.
Planetside didn't "fail".
F2P brings in more players and money. You might not like it, but I don't really see the difference between paying $60 for a game, and paying $15 a month subscription and getting to try a game for free and putting $15 or $20 a month in a cash shop. At least with the F2P game, if you don't like it you can stop playing and you didn't lose $60 bucks right off the bat.
Legends of Kesmai, UO, EQ, AO, DAoC, AC, SB, RO, SWG, EVE, EQ2, CoH, GW, VG:SOH, WAR, Aion, DF, CO, MO, DN, Tera, SWTOR, RO2, DP, GW2, PS2, BnS, NW, FF:XIV, ESO, EQ:NL
I agree. His arguments have ranged from insane to childish. He clearly can't comprehend the topic at hand.
Legends of Kesmai, UO, EQ, AO, DAoC, AC, SB, RO, SWG, EVE, EQ2, CoH, GW, VG:SOH, WAR, Aion, DF, CO, MO, DN, Tera, SWTOR, RO2, DP, GW2, PS2, BnS, NW, FF:XIV, ESO, EQ:NL
Vanguard was being funded by Microsoft before SOE put money into it. The game was taking to long in development and so dropped the game. SOE took it up and gave Smedly money to finish it.
He was forced to release the game to early and this is what made Vanguard suffer a poor launch. The game itself and its core mechanics were sound the game lore was brilliant. Then Smedly left the development of Vanguard and SOE messed it up.
As for SWG and the NGE Lucas arts pushed for it because they wanted to beat Blizzard with their WoW crown and run with it. All it showed was you can not drastically change a live mmo and think the players will like it. The forums were alight with comments from players asking for the NGE to never go live. The day after it went live the servers were dead, I know this because on the Farstar server I saw it happen.
i frankly don't want to read all 27 pages on this thread, so i will ask simply:
could someone please provide the hard evidence that LA was behind the NGE changes and not SOE?
i am not saying that the claim is false, i just want to get to the bottom of this argument and it seems that there is a substantial lack of hard evidence on both sides.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Of course you can, like others in this thread, continue to deny that the LA statement makes it clear that they made the call about their IP. Or you can like me accept that the owner of the IP had an agenda and SOE (and Smed) had to go along or face problems with LA who have a reputation for enforcing their control of their IP in the courts if necessary.
you need to read the thread so you can read the link that has the guy from LA saying why they wanted to make the changes.
Microsoft has billions of dollars... Why can't they simply just allow a good game to be developed and launched properly? Vanguard had such potential!!! GRR!!!
I remember when it launched and didn't run on my computer, it took all this time and a much more powerful computer to run it properly ... *sigh*
I'm grateful that Sony took Vanguard, the game is still fun to play around on...
If only Microsoft would do something great like fund an awesome MMO instead of supporting that failure search engine Bing, and designing lame OS like Windows 8...
I've got as far as this and got bored with your comments, not sure what your trying to prove here apart from trolling. You show me a company who have not made mistakes in business and made money from day one. IMO what SOE have done has been very impressive. Have they made bad games, sure and like many other MMO companies will do so again.
But what they have done is support their games going forward more and more. I played EQI II and even Vanguard, I still play Vanguard today and the amount of love going into this game is growing daily. They have a team working it and the forums are active with what they are doing and feed-back. For them to still have a very active community tells you they have done something right all these 14 or so years.
I spent eight years in EQI and played EQII for about two years as I was disappointed it was little different from EQI and more grind than EQI. But in them days we knew little more as there were only a few games of this type around. EQI had a massive community which created lots of friends all around the world and for me this was the start of my MMO gaming life and all the crap that has followed EQI imo has never or will never replace the RISK for Reward that this game brought.
Now as for the hype this and another site are the only ones hyping EQN, SOE has not given it the full double barrels and the reason for this is that it will be shown to the fans first for their loyalty at SOE live in August and I think that's a nice touch personally, rewarding them for staying and supporting them for years.
If anyone on here thinks the next MMO will be all singing and dancing with a flawless start and no bugs then they are living in cuckoo land. The one thing I see from MMO games is it has a cancer of moaners who complain about every little thing without really having a good reason to complain. While I accept the NGE fail was a fair reason to voice concerns and as I only beta tested SWG and felt it was a poor game so never played the final product as I felt it was weak and would not last long and ended up being proved right sadly.
I for one salute SOE for trying things in this tough market place and had it not been for the likes of SOE then the likes of Blizzard might not of even seen the light of day. The sad thing is about folk holding a grudge is because they lost the love they liked, many games get changes and not always for the good. But the developers know what they want from their games and they know best when it comes to balancing. many people dislike balancing but when you want new content then it has to be balanced and this is the most complained thing in all MMO's but folks just don't see what's gone on behind the scenes.
The bottom line is no matter how much you or I comment on the good, the bad, or the ugly SOE will be here long after you or I leave this spinning planet so if your not a fan, then stop wasting time moaning about things which you have no control over and trying to influence people due to your bad experiences. YOU don't have to invest time or money into this company if you feel so strongly about them, however you have and I cannot get my head round why you bothered.
Fifteen years of gaming has taught me one thing, there are some really nice people out there who are bored and love moaning as do I every now and then. But I would not be on these boards had it not been for SOE and other games like UO or Asheron's Call. I for one hope that Smed has managed to create a new monster EQN and know it will never replace my times in EQI but if it manages to be a combination of all the good bits from other games past and present then it could make me return to MMO'ing days I so miss.
Bandit
Asbo
This game will tank we all know it. However it will leave the door ajar for other development teams to peak inside and view the pro verbal yearning of the sandbox mmorpg genre. SWG, Vanguard, Ps2 among others.
Some argue ps2 is great, but those are the people that love a dumber down version of Battlefield 3.They completely ruined what made ps1 great, gutted it and gave it to the casuals. Hence why ever since it launched its been losing population. So many problems with the game but I give them credit to at least attempting to fix the problem. Just about all the veterans from Ps1 quit because its a fragest fps with grind.
EQ-next will tote genre shattering game play, elements, and features, but it will all be word play to captivate you. Hopefully in 5 years we will see development of great sandbox titles.
MurderHerd
Funny that, I would not be on these boards had it not been for SOE/Lucas screwup and would still play SWG as it was pre-"combat upgrade/NGE"
NEW IDEAS that can refresh the STALE state of MMORPGs
I keep hearing this but yt we know nothing of the game other then vague terms, where as we have tons and tons of positive info on FFXIV
I don't understand how one can ignore all the positive info, and grasp onto something so vague that no one actuly ahs any idea what it is.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
Oh goodness. There are links to both LA and SOE saying they wanted the changes.
The truth is that both companies wanted to do something, because they knew that SWG was going to start losing players, and that if they didn't change something, it wouldn't stop. There is no way to know who was the first to say it, but they both knew it, and they were both on board with the changes.
Both share the responsibility, because both had to agree to the NGE for it to happen.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The problem with this point of view is that there is no evidence that SOE wasn't in agreement with LA. Everything points to SOE being on board with the changes. Whether LA or SOE was the first to make the decision doesn't matter. It was a team effort.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The link regarding SOE simply shows Sedley taking fall for the NGE. Nowhere it shows that it was his idea. However the statement by nancy the lead producer from LA show that it was there idea and she even stated the reasons for it.
Moreover when a company like LA tells you to make changes you can not simply say no just like how you can not say no to Game Workshop who is largely responsible for ruining Warhammer Online with too many restrictions and their notorious control over their IP.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
I agree whole heartedly there is going to be a lot of sad panda faces around these parts once they see what the game is really like.
PS. Smedley is a dinosaur and so are his ideas, need some young blood coming up with the new innovative ideas.
Oh goodness. There are links to both LA and SOE saying they wanted the changes. The truth is that both companies wanted to do something, because they knew that SWG was going to start losing players, and that if they didn't change something, it wouldn't stop. There is no way to know who was the first to say it, but they both knew it, and they were both on board with the changes. Both share the responsibility, because both had to agree to the NGE for it to happen.
The link regarding SOE simply shows Sedley taking fall for the NGE. Nowhere it shows that it was his idea. However the statement by nancy the lead producer from LA show that it was there idea and she even stated the reasons for it.
Moreover when a company like LA tells you to make changes you can not simply say no just like how you can not say no to Game Workshop who is largely responsible for ruining Warhammer Online with too many restrictions and their notorious control over their IP.
You're making a leap of faith from "things that are known" to "things believed".
If SOE was not on board with the changes, there would have been drama surrounding the NGE before it released. There wasn't, it just popped up out of the aether, fully formed and ready to go. If SOE thought players wouldn't get behind it and that it would tank the game, they could have made a case for it, but they didn't. Not to the players, not to the press, not through any "surprise leaks", nothing. They thought it would work exactly the way LA thought it would work.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
I don't think anyone here has denied that SOE isn't involved but premises of OP's post is that SOE is solely responsible for NGE. If you read my previous posts and others who have been posting links, you would know that we never said that SOE didn't screw up in past but when the lead producer of LA id admitting that NGE was their idea, there isn't much argument left.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney