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My Exit Rant
Bissrok
Member Posts: 1,002
EDIT: Alright, since they deleted it, I'll repost it on here so no one can miss it. Thank you, MX13, for originally posting it on here. Here was the final version of it:
NOTE #1: Wait a second! Put down that ban stick and hear me out.
First off, here’s a part of the Message Board Conduct post:
“In general, you may post any
material written in a courteous and mature manner… This includes material that
disagrees with the way that we, the developers, operate the game. We will not
interfere with the communication of thoughts and ideas as long as the
presentation is constructive and appropriate for all those capable of reading
the forum.”
Now, I’ve read through all the rules
twice now. If I’ve broken any, it’s the “no repeat” rules. And only because
everyone’s trying so desperately to save this game. Now, the way I worded this
rant’s not exactly courteous. But, since you mocked me and my fellow vets on
TV, threw away the countless hours of work I put into this game, and ignored
every letter and e-mail I’ve sent, this is as nice as I can possibly be. Any
“flames” are simply negative comments, accepted as truth by the majority (NOTE:
I do not mean specifically “the majority of people on this site”, though I’m
sure it still holds true). This is posted in hopes of being constructive, even
though I’m certain it will be ignored. That isn’t out of pessimism, it’s just
something I've observed over the years.
NOTE #2: I yell at "kids" a lot in this rant. Real kids,
no offense intended. I'm pretty young myself, so I'm not talking about actual
kids. I'm talking about the ones that act like kids. Ironically enough,
these people usually seem to be in their thirties.
NOTE #3: This isn’t for the devs but it is addressed to them
(Simply because I like to pretend that I’m yelling at them).
----------------------------------------------
I’ve been around since launch. I
know you’re not listening and I know you don’t care. I accept that. It’s just
who you are. And, when one of the mods reads this, regardless of their own
rules, I’m sure I’ll earn myself a ban that’s longer than my subscription.
Which brings me to my first point:
1)
Learn the difference between trolling and a valid customer complaint: “PRE-CU
FTW!!!” is trolling. “I put in a year's worth of work and spent $280 on your
game and you throw all of it away on a whim? That makes me angry” is a valid
complaint. And what about those of us who had seven accounts? If they’ve given
you over a thousand dollars, shouldn’t they at least be allowed to voice their
opinion? Why are they foced to troll MMORPG.com? They’re angry, sure. But you
were expecting them to be.
We’re paying customers –treat us a
little respect. The trolling wouldn’t be a problem if you had done that in the
first place.
2) Bring the game back to being a world sim: This whole
“generic clone of every other MMO on the market with a Star Wars skin” thing
you’ve got going on just isn’t working. Why did people like the old system? It
was deep, complex, and you were free to do your own thing. Everyone was
different and everything was interdependent.
Who are you appealing to? Everyone
who cares about Star Wars already tried the game out years ago. The casual
gamers browsing the MMO sites will me scared off by all the hatred towards the
game and this company. The WoW crowd’s not going to try this. Most leave
because their game’s too simple. This game’s less complex, easier, buggier,
laggier and less populated.
For you kids, a “world simulation”
doesn’t mean boring, complex work. Honestly, every aspect of the game was
better:
-Combat: It was much more intense.
Dozens of states, balanced professions, harder enemies and wounds to punish you
for getting hit too often. Having to run out to your corpse in your underwear
also helped to teach you life’s most important lesson (don’t die). And it made
a hell of a lot more sense –You are cloned, not your items.
-Crafting: Eveyone depended on the
crafters for everything. They were the core of the game.
-Bounty Hunters: Back when Jedi’s
had perma death (and it meant something to be a Jedi), you could be sure that
when you finally managed to kill your target, you probably made that player
cry.
-Medics/Entertainers: Were both
heavily depended upon. Not only did they heal wounds, but they brought the
community together.
-GCW: I've never seen two sides hate
each other than much the two factions did during the pre-CU days. Even in real
life. Large scale, unplanned PvP battles broke out every night. And it
almost always started with raiding a player base. Mention that you were an Imp.
in a Rebel cantina and it'd get ugly, real fast.
-No Legacy Quests: You weren’t stuck
in a linear story. You were free to live your own life. If you wanted to craft
high end weapons and hunt down Jedi with them, you could. Want to take
rancor DNA and make powerful, neon orange durnys to kill rebels with? You could
do that as well. Feel like soloing on Endor? You’d make XP just as fast, so
have at it. And, even if you made a new character, doing the same profession
you’ve done before, you could be sure that you were in for a completely
different experience.
3)
Your target audience: At the moment you’ve got hardcore RPers, disgruntled vets
who claim to only stay because of their friends… and then you’ve got kids.
Bunches and bunches of kids. And that’s your target audience. The WoW kiddies
who only want to “loot, kill, repeat” and can’t be bothered to think.
But, do you know anything about
these kids? You don’t have a unique system. All you’ve got is a level grind and
a PvP system with no penalties. Even if you managed to tap into that mythical
“WoW market”, how long do you think they’re going to stay? A month? Two? They
have no loyalty to the game. When all MMOs on the market are alike, there’s
nothing to inspire it these days. In the end, they’re guaranteed to move on to
the next game once they get bored. They’re not a group you should be dependent
on.
We were the ones that stayed around
for years. And, better yet, we were the ones that buy Playstations, TVs and
will buy a game based on the brand. At the moment your not getting the
huge crowds, you’re just getting normal kids.
And if you’re going to throw us to
the wolves, don’t half-a** it. Drop trader, entertainer, medic –Hell, drop
everything but Jedi and Bounty Hunter. Just increase the loot rates and they
won’t mind in the slightest. The second they read that loot’s been increased
and those traders won’t be taking any more of their precious credits, they’ll
be spamming the boards with “DEVS, OMG HAVE MEH BABIES!!!” posts.
4)
Crafting/Economy: This has been covered over and over again. It’s useless at
the moment. If you don’t improve their items, get rid of the “no trade”
equipment and add decay, you might as well drop the class and add in NPC
venders.
You had the best crafting system on
the market, don’t waste it.
5)
Levels and Classes: Aside from having been done over and over a gain by every
MMO on the market, they just make for a terrible game. Together, they’ve ruined
MMOs. This just sets you on a mindless grind to 90. What else is there to do?
The PvP with no penalties?
The reason that doesn’t work should
be obvious. What will you be doing a month from now? I’ll farm for loot, I’ll
fight rebels, maybe I’ll grind a new class to 90.
Ask that question to someone during
the pre-CU days and what would you hear? “I have no idea”.
It takes the thrill out of PvP. It
changes how you look for a group: "Anyone want to go hunting?"
becomes "Any Jedi around level 45 want to run missions?"
Yeah, there were levels before. But
showing them to us changed everything.
6)
Tweaks and Revamps: For the love of God, stop revamping everything. Any time a
system‘s needed a few tweaks, you’ve ripped it out and replaced it with
something buggier. And lately the new systems are just buggier version of
what’s in WoW or something that was in the game at launch.
You say the old system would have
taken too much work to balance, when we weren’t asking for balance. We wanted
tweaks. And now it’ll take a year just to get all the classes their expertise
systems (to make things more diverse)? Doesn’t diversity bring up balancing
issues again? Things are horribly unbalanced as it is and they’ll have to wait
a year before everyone’s gotten their expertise system and you can start
working on balancing them? How does this make sense? You’ve spent all
this time, and even scrapped the old game, trying to balance things, and you’ve
only mananged to make it worse.
Revamps can work, when done
correctly. In fact, you desperately quite a few. But, until you’ve shown that
you can do them correctly, I’d say hold off on them.
If you’re going to ignore that part,
though, at least remember that balancing doesn’t always require nerfs. You
don’t always have to nerf a good class to match the weakest. Sometimes
it’s better to just improve the weaker class.
7)
Particle effects: Is this a low budget rave? No? Then why are there neon
bubbles, fog and strobe lights when I’m fighting? That’s not Star Warsy nor
iconic. That’s not even interesting. Sure, you’ve made the ADD kids happy
(“hey, colors!”) but to everyone else, it just looks ridiculous. Let me turn
them off.
8)
Creature Handler: Everyone likes pets. So, by taking them out, you’ve pissed
off everyone. On that note…
9)
Stop pissing everybody off: It’s one of the reasons so little people are
playing. Sure, it’s also just not a fun game anymore. But a big part of it’s
word of mouth. You’re one of the most hated companies in the buisness for a
reason.
You threw away all of our time and
progress without an appology or a hint of remorse, you mocked us on TV, and you’ve
lied to us time and time again. You’ve shown, countless times, that you don’t
care what we think and that you’re only out to get our money. And every time
you ban one of us for saying so, we just find a new forum to complain on. And
we get more pissed off listening to other people’s horror stories.
There’s a reason MMORPG.com needs a
“We’re Angry at SOE” thread on every game you’re involved with. And, even with
those, the forums still manage to be covered in posts flaming you guys. You
took the one good MMO on the market, screwed us over and took it away from us
for good. We’re not going to just drop it if you keep ignoring us.
New kids, when you see us vets
flaming SOE, it’s not because we don’t like the NGE. There’s a lot of MMOs we
don’t like. We’re complaining because we got screwed over very, very badly. At
least have some respect for that. We understand that you’re having fun. But
hundreds of thousands of us were treated horribly. To us, we quit to protest,
and you crossed the picket lines.
Just try to understand where we’re
coming from. And understand that they’ll do the same to you without warning,
without appology, and without a second thought. And if you think they’d never
do that to you, remember a few things:
-They said that the CU was here to
stay.
-With a rollback, they could triple
the number of subscribers in about a week.
-Screwing over hundreds of thousands
of players doesn’t seem to bother them in the slightest. They won’t lose any
sleep over eighty thousand or so.
Do you think they like you better,
or are you just being ignorant on purpose? They’ll do it again, because they
haven’t been punished for it. We tried to save other people from this by
protesting this game, by refusing to buy Sony products. What does that say when
you support a company that does this to their customers?
(NOTE: I see the hypocrisy in
yelling at you for subscribing to the same game I’m currently subscribed to.
But after talking about my experience in the game, I’ve managed to convince one
person not to resub. Therefore, my conscious is clear and I can get back up on
my moral high horse)
How is this relevent to the
gameplay? Go to an MMO forum and ask how many people would want to play a game
run by SOE. Their awful reputation shrinks the community which, in turn, ruins
my SWG experience.
10) Difficulty: I started a new guy on my first day back. I
played for about two hours. Got to level 17 and was incapped one time. I could
heal myself for 1600 points every couple seconds and my Force Lighting kicked
the s*** out of anything that was stupid enough to fight me. I could kill mobs
three levels higher than me, as long as there were no more than three of them.
I had about 150k credits, two vehicles and two ships.
Where was I two hours into pre-CU
SWG? I was a novice scout, had 250c and I was wandering around Talus, on foot,
completely lost. Eventually I ran into an aggro mob and died. No one held
your hand and you had to work your a** off to succeed.
Now, I've played a lot of MMOs in
the last couple years. But this is, by far, the easiest. Even WoW was a lot
harder then this. I’ve played through ¾ of the professions up until about level
30. The only one that was hard to get through was the crafter, and only because
I had no reason to keep grinding out items.
My point: If everyone’s successful
and no one’s had to work for it, there’s nothing to be proud of.
11) Focus!: This game still has major problems. Look at the
forums and take a few ideas for once. There’s some great stuff on here. This
game has some crippling problems and the character art’s being updated? You’re
ripping off the WoW PvP ranking system that ripped off yours? You’re screwing
with the inventory?
Time to start doing the job we’re
paying you to do. You can start by fixing the things people are screaming at
you to fix. Seriously, play this game a little every once and awhile and
you’ll quickly see what’s gone terribly, terribly wrong.
12) Wounds: They brought the community together. Crafters/hunters
to harvest the resources, entertainers and doctors to heal. It gives people
some much needed down time. Time to just sit back and talk to your fellow
players.
After all, if you don’t want to talk
and interact with other people, why play an online game? I realize that some of
you new people don’t like to be “forced” to interact with other players. But,
that’s why they have single player games. The rest of us like relying on others
and being relied on. We’re not here to play “alone, together”.
Oh, and it gives the entertainers
and medics a purpose in the game.
13) Diversity: 95% of the people I met yesterday were Jedi who
had put all their expertise points into healing. Half used guns, half used
melee weapons. Is that the diversity you’ve been praising?
14) Jedi: Devs, pull your heads out of your a**es. Did you see
thousands of Jedi running around in the original trilogy? Did you see any
dueling in the starports? Did you see any, aside from the main characters? Did
you hear the “all but extinct” line? Is this “Star Wars: The Parallel Universe”
in which millions of inferior Jedi clones were produced? No. No, it’s not.
Sure, “it’s just a game”. And you
really, really want to run around with your Jedi, so you can show off your
lightsaber. Well… Too God***n bad. The rest of us understand that the Star Wars
galaxy doesn’t revolve around twelve year olds screaming “PWN” at each other.
Plus, what’s the appeal of being a
Jedi if your just as powerful as your average medic? (Sure, you’re stronger
now, but people have assured me that after all the expertise are in place,
every class will be perfectly balanced)
I know, I know, who gives a s**t
about gamplay –“it sells boxes”. But, log in to any city in the game, on any
server... I don't think that plan worked out too well.
In the beginning, a lot of us were
hoping that, one day we could be one of the elite. But only if we worked hard,
put in a lot of hours and figured out the mystery. “What was the mystery?”, the
youngins might ask. It was unlocking the Force Sensitive slot, when it had
never been done before and we were given no hints. So, we worked hard to piece
together the clues. This was the sole reason some of stayed. Blindly hoping to
become the first Jedi. Someone who could single-handedly change the fate of their
server (or so we had hoped).
Now when anyone thinks of “Jedi”
they think of a kid running his mouth on the forums or that endless slapfight
they’ve gotten into with the bounty hunters.
15) Temporary Enemy Flags: Bring back TEFs. If this a war, and
someone walks up and shoots a stormtrooper, I would know that he’s an enemy of
the Empire. Don’t want to flagged as an enemy? Stop killing our soldiers.
16) Legacy Quests: Fantastic rewards and experience (about five
times as much as you’d get from a terminal). In fact, they’re so good, that you
really have no choice but do them. Oh, and they’re mind numbingly boring. Keep
in mind, I ran missions from the terminals non-stop for months at a time. And,
yes, this is worse. Plus, isn’t this supposed to be my story? My adventure? Why
am I doing the same thing as everyone else (Excluding crafters and
entertainers. None of which have ever left a legacy)?
17) The UI/Targeting System: It’s just clumsy mess. I’ve had to
remap half the controls and get a mod to fix the UI. It’s still worse than what
we had before.
18) Houses and Maintenance: Last time I played, house
maintenance ran off of the bank. And, even when it ran out, the houses stayed
around. Switch it back to the old way (where you'd manually put the money
into your house), so that they run out quicker. And put a lower cap on it,
maybe two or three months worth. This way, they’ve got a few months to resub
and put a little more money in. If anything, a friend could keep the house
going for them.
From what I hear, SOE’s worried
about people getting pissed about losing their houses and never wanting to
subscribe again. Guys, trust me, that’s not what were concerned about. That’s
not even on the radar. We’re begging you to wipe everything and rollback. And,
even if we resub in a moment of weakness, we’re not thinking about our house.
We’re thinking about how great the game used to be. You’re just pissing off
your current subscribers.
19) Instant Travel: Sure, it works with the current system. Why
wait around at spaceports when there’s no one else around and the game’s
focused on constant, mindless action? Well, again, you need to move away from
that. And if you do that, the people come back. Add back ten minute wait times
–even for your own ships. (New guys: Your chances of having to actually wait
the full ten minutes were very low)
You could use a little down time.
You don’t need to be constantly shooting things, or driving to shoot things.
It’s nice to have some downtime. Time to socialize with your fellow players.
Everyone’s got stories about the great people they’ve met at the spaceport.
Oh, and yes, you were forced to just
stand there and wait for no reason at all. And, like camps, we thought it was
fun.
20) Where the **** Did My Scout Go?: There were a lot of people
who played scouts in the begining. Camping in the middle of nowhere, trapping
creatures, harvesting skin and bones... It was the "adventurer"
profession and the massive planets filled with new and dangerous wildlife just
begged to be explored. Why would you just assume that we wouldn’t want to play
as one anymore? And harvesting’s gone, too? Is it that big of a hassle to stop
and think about which resource you want to harvest? Why am I looting bone and
laser sights off of a lizard?
If you’re going to dumb it down and
disregard logic, drop loot altogether and have a system where, everytime I kill
something, I have a chance of wining some uber weapon that’s set to my current
level. (NOTE: That was sarcasm)
21) The Action Icons: They look ridiculous.
22) PvE: It's incredibly easy, boring and bugged. Why is
everyone twitching and running circles around me like hyper squirrels? Why can
enemies still shoot through solid objects? Why can they run through objects and
hide in them? Why can they be running down a hall one second, and reappear
behind you the next? Why aren’t my specials firing? Why wasn’t this s***
working from the begining?
23) New, Old Content: What’s with all the people thanking the
devs for bringing back double layer hotbars? Where the hell have you been?
“OMG! They went out of their way to bring back resizable radar… Even though
they went out of their way to take it out in the first place.”
We’re supposed to pay them to break
parts of the game, pay them while they sit around and tell us that we didn’t
like the old system, pay them to bring back a broken version of what we had
before, pay them to fix it and then thank them for it?
Is this some sort of psychological game
that you're using to trick them into giving us a rollback? Flame them when they
add new content, praise them when they bring back an old system?
How do you justify sticking around
from month to month when it’s this obvious that they don’t give a **** about
fixing the game and they only want to milk you for as long as they can, without
doing any real work?
24) “Playing alone, alone”: I played on Bria and Ahazi during
the last month. No amount of BS can get you passed the fact that there’s just
no one around anymore. Mos Eisley’s got a few people. Every other city, on
every other server, is just empty. How is this a constructive criticism? Well,
it could easily be fixed by following suggestions #1-23. The community was a
huge part of the game for nearly everyone who played back then. I’d say it’s a
problem worth looking into.
---------------------------------------------------
I know this isn’t the same game
anymore. And I’m treating it that way. The problem is, by itself, this is
garbage. Much worse than WoW or EQII. The only thing saving this game is the IP
and the old game’s legacy. Sure, it’s improved since the NGE was released. But,
how difficult is that? They honestly could have done anything, even pull the
plug, and the game would have improved dramatically.
Kids, devs, we’re not doing all this
because we hate change. The old game just worked better. It brought in more
subscribers and less people complained. I know the old system didn’t feel
“Star Warsy” to some of you. But, rest assured, we didn’t need to be saved my
Han, chased by Vader or helping out Watto to know that we were in the Star Wars
universe. And sure, it was complicated. But I was a sixteen year old kid
who had never played an MMO before, and I got the hang of things quick enough.
Simple might draw people in easier, but complicated keeps them around for a lot
longer.
Final Point: The game’s not “doing better” and it’s not “making
progress”. It’s gut shot and simply delusional. Time to seek help or simply lie
down and die.
Comments
Excellent post. And you pretty much described exactly why this week I
finally quit for good without looking back. 5 accounts and over 2
years gone. I'm done trying to convince these people what they did
wrong and what to do about it. This game will never see me again until
the game I originally bought and loved is brought back, even if on
servers that carry disclaimers "NO DEV MAINTENANCE, CHARACTERS SUBJECT
TO RANDOM DELETION" that are run out of back alley server farms.
Or, I may come back if the NGE is ever "finished" and gotten "right". Which will be sometime around the year 2525.
Not only has my experience with SWG soured me towards it, SOE, and
LucasArts, it's soured me towards MMO's in general. A lot of us will
not only likely never play this game again, we likely will never trust
a MMO again. Investing time and montly fees into something requires
trust in the honesty and integrity of those running it. I can honestly
say that SOE/LEC have completely betrayed that trust, and to this point
haven't even bothered to apologize or make their wrongs right.
I loved the old game because to get to where I wanted to go took
months, many months, and the journey and destination were worth it.
Thanks to the NGE, put me in the instant gratification crowd, if it
takes more than a month to do, it's not worth doing because I don't
trust ANY MMO publisher to not completely screw me over the next month.
Goodbye and good luck. I hope that one bit of good comes out of this
tragedy, and that is no one else ever has this done to the game they
love, that the lesson is learned.
See you somewhere back in Cnet, in that great buff line in the sky. 2885's, 3hrs. Please check that battle fatigue!
Great post, and it will get deleted so here:
NOTE #1: Wait a second! Put down that ban stick and hear me out. First off, here’s a part of the Message Board Conduct post:
“In general, you may post any material written in a courteous and mature manner… This includes material that disagrees with the way that we, the developers, operate the game. We will not interfere with the communication of thoughts and ideas as long as the presentation is constructive and appropriate for all those capable of reading the forum.”
Now, I’ve read through all the rules twice now. If I’ve broken any, it’s the “no repeat” rules. And only because everyone’s trying so desperately to save this game. Now, the way I worded this rant’s not exactly courteous. But, since you mocked me and my fellow vets on TV, threw away hundreds of dollars, countless hours of work, and ignored every letter and e-mail I’ve sent, this is as nice as I can possibly be. Any “flames” are simply negative comments, accepted as truth by the majority (NOTE: I do not mean specifically “the majority of people on this site”, though I’m sure it still holds true). This is posted in hopes of being constructive, even though I’m certain it will be ignored. That isn’t out of pessimism, it’s just something I’ve observed over the years.
NOTE #2: This isn’t for the devs but it is addressed to them (Simply because I like to pretend that I’m yelling at them).
----------------------------------------------
I’ve been around since launch. I know you’re not listening and I know you don’t care. I accept that. It’s just who you are. And, when one of the mods reads this, regardless of their own rules, I’m sure I’ll earn myself a ban that’s longer than my subscription. Which brings me to my first point:
1) Learn the difference between trolling and a valid customer complaint: “PRE-CU FTW!!!” is trolling. “I put in a years worth of work and spent $280 on your game and you throw all of it away on a whim? That makes me angry” is a valid complaint. And what about those of us who had seven accounts? If they’ve given you over a thousand dollars, shouldn’t they at least be allowed to voice their opinion? Why are they foced to troll MMORPG.com? They’re angry, sure. But you were expecting them to be.
We’re paying customers –treat us a little respect. The trolling wouldn’t be a problem if you had done that in the first place.
2) Bring the focus back to the world sim: This whole “generic clone of every other MMO on the market with a Star Wars skin” thing you’ve got going on just isn’t working. Why did people like the old system? It was deep, complex, and you were free to do your own thing. Everyone was different and everything was interdependent.
Who are you appealing to? Everyone who cares about Star Wars has already come and gone. The casual gamers browsing the MMO sites will me scared off by all the hatred towards the game and this company. The WoW crowd’s not going to try this. Most leave because their game’s too simple. This game’s less complex, easier, buggier, laggier and less populated.
For you kids, a “world simulation” doesn’t mean boring, complex work. Honestly, every aspect of the game was better:
-Combat: It was much more intense. Dozens of states, balanced professions, harder enemies and wounds to punish you for getting hit too often. Having to run out to your corpse in your underwear also helped to teach you life’s most important lesson (don’t die). (And it made a hell of a lot more sense –You are cloned, not your items)
-Crafting: Eveyone depended on the crafters for everything. They were the core of the game.
-Bounty Hunters: Back when Jedi’s had perma death (and it meant something to be a Jedi), you could be sure that when you finally managed to kill your target, you probably made that player cry.
-Medics/Entertainers: Were both heavily depended upon. Not only did they heal wounds, but they brought the community together.
-GCW: In the beginning… I had never seen two sides hate each other that much. Even in real life. Large scale, unplanned PvP battles broke out every night. And it almost always started with raiding a player base. And if you mentioned you were an Imp. in a Rebel cantina… it’d get ugly, real fast.
-No Legacy Quests: You weren’t stuck in a linear story. You were free to live your own life. If you wanted to craft high end weapons and hunt down Jedi with them, you could. Want to take rancor DNA and make powerful, neon orange durnys to kill rebels with? You could do that as well. Feel like soloing on Endor? You’d make XP just as fast, so have at it. And, even if you made a new character, doing the same profession you’ve done before, you could be sure that you were in for a completely different experience.
3) Your target audience: At the moment you’ve got hardcore RPers, disgruntled vets who claim to only stay because of their friends… and then you’ve got kids. Bunches and bunches of kids. And that’s your target audience. The WoW kiddies who only want to “loot, kill, repeat” and can’t be bothered to think.
But, do you know anything about these kids? You don’t have a unique system. All you’ve got is a level grind and a PvP system with no penalties. Even if you managed to tap into that mythical “WoW market”, how long do you think they’re going to stay? A month? Two? They have no loyalty to the game. When all MMOs on the market are alike, there’s nothing to inspire it these days. In the end, they’re guaranteed to move on to the next game once they get bored. They’re not a group you should be dependent on.
We were the ones that stayed around for years. And, better yet, we were the ones that buy Playstations, TVs and will buy a game based on the brand. At the moment your not getting the huge crowds, you’re just getting normal kids.
And if you’re going to throw us to the wolves, don’t half-a** it. Drop traders, entertainers, medics –Hell, drop everything but Jedi and Bounty Hunter. Just increase the loot rates and they won’t mind in the slightest. The second they read that loot’s been increased and those traders won’t be taking any more of their precious credits, they’ll be spamming the boards with “DEVS, OMG HAVE MEH BABIES!!!” posts.
4) Crafting/Economy: This has been covered over and over again. It’s useless at the moment. If you don’t improve their items, get rid of the “no trade” equipment and add decay, you might as well drop the class and add in NPC venders.
You have the best crafting system on the market, don’t waste it.
5) Levels and Classes: Aside from having been done over and over again by every MMO on the market, they just make for a terrible game. Together, they’ve ruined MMOs. This just sets you on a mindless grind to 90. What else is there to do? The PvP with no penalties?
The reason that doesn’t work should be obvious. What will you be doing a month from now? I’ll farm for loot, I’ll fight rebels, maybe I’ll grind a new class to 90.
Ask that question to someone during the pre-CU days and what would you hear? “I have no idea”.
Yeah, there were levels before. But showing them to us changed everything.
6) Tweaks and Revamps: For the love of God, stop revamping everything. Any time a system‘s needed a few tweaks, you’ve ripped it out and replaced it with something buggier. And lately the new systems are just buggier version of what’s in WoW or something that was in the game at launch.
You say the old system would have taken too much work to balance, when we weren’t asking for balance. We wanted tweaks. And now it’ll take a year just to get all the classes their expertise systems (to make things more diverse)? Doesn’t diversity bring up balancing issues again? Things are horribly unbalanced as it is and they’ll have to wait a year before everyone’s gotten their expertise system and you can start working on balancing them? How does this make sense? You’ve spent all this time, and even scrapped the old game, trying to balance things, and you’ve only mananged to make it worse.
Revamps can work, when done correctly. In fact, you desperately quite a few. But, until you’ve shown that you can do them right, I’d say hold off on them.
If you’re going to ignore that part, though, at least remember that balancing doesn’t always require nerfs. You don’t always have to nerf a good class to match the weakest. Sometimes it’s better to just improve the weaker class.
7) Particle effects: Is this a low budget rave? No? Then why are there neon bubbles, fog and strobe lights when I’m fighting? That’s not Star Warsy nor iconic. That’s not even interesting. Sure, you’ve made the ADD kids happy (“hey, colors!”) but to everyone else, it just looks ridiculous. Let me turn them off.
8) Creature Handler: Everyone likes pets. So, by taking them out, you’ve pissed off everyone. On that note…
9) Stop pissing everybody off: It’s one of the reasons so little people are playing. Sure, it’s also just not a fun game. But a big part of it’s word of mouth. You’re one of the most hated companies in the buisness for a reason.
You threw away all of our time and progress without an appology or a hint of remorse, you mocked us on TV, and you’ve lied to us time and time again. You’ve shown, countless times, that you don’t care what we think and that you’re only out to get our money. And every time you ban one of us for saying so, we just find a new forum to complain on. And we get more pissed off listening to other people’s horror stories.
There’s a reason MMORPG.com needs a “We’re Angry at SOE” thread on every game you’re involved with. And, even with those, the forums still manage to be covered in posts flaming you guys. You took the one good MMO on the market, screwed us over and took it away from us for good. We’re not going to just drop it if you keep ignoring us.
New kids, when you see us vets flaming SOE, it’s not because we don’t like the NGE. There’s a lot of MMOs we don’t like. We’re complaining because we got screwed over very, very badly. At least have some respect for that. We understand that you’re having fun. But hundreds of thousands of us were treated horribly. To us, we quit to protest, and you crossed the picket lines.
Just try to understand where we’re coming from. And understand that they’ll do the same to you without warning, without appology, and without a second thought. And if you think they’d never do that to you, remember a few things:
-They said that the CU was here to stay.
-With a rollback, they could triple the number of subscribers in about a week.
-Screwing over hundreds of thousands of players doesn’t seem to bother them in the slightest. They won’t lose any sleep over eighty thousand or so.
Do you think they like you better, or are you just being ignorant on purpose? They’ll do it again, because they haven’t been punished for it. We tried to save other people from this by protesting this game, by refusing to buy Sony products. What does that say when you support a company that does this to their customers?
(NOTE: I see the hypocrisy in yelling at you for subscribing to the same game I’m currently subscribed to. But after talking about my experience in the game, I’ve managed to convince one person not to resub. Therefore, my conscious is clear and I can get back up on my moral high horse)
How is this relevent to the gameplay? Go to an MMO forum and ask how many people would want to play a game run by SOE. Their awful reputation shrinks the community which, in turn, ruins my SWG experience.
10) Difficulty: I started a new guy on my first day back. I played for about two hours. Got to level 17 and was incapped one time. I could heal myself for 1600 points every couple seconds and my Force Lighting kicked the s**t out of anything that was stupid enough to fight me. I could kill mobs three levels higher than me, as long as there were no more than three of them. I had about 150k credits, two vehicles and two ships.
Where was I two hours into pre-CU SWG? I was a novice scout, had 250c and I was wandering around Talus, on foot, completely lost. Eventually I ran into an aggro mob and died. No one held your hand and you had to work your a** off to succeed.
Now, I've played a lot of MMOs in the last couple years. But this is, by far, the easiest. Even WoW was a lot harder then this. I’ve played through ¾ of the professions up until about level 30. The only one that was hard to get through was the crafter, and only because I had no reason to keep grinding out items.
My point: If everyone’s successful and no one’s had to work for it, there’s nothing to be proud of.
11) Focus!: This game still has major problems. Look at the forums and take a few ideas for once. There’s some great stuff on here. This game has some crippling problems and the character art’s being updated? You’re ripping off the WoW’s PvP ranking system that ripped off yours? You’re screwing with the inventory?
Time to start doing the job we’re paying you to do. You can start by fixing the things people are screaming at you to fix. Seriously, play this game a little every once and awhile and you’ll quickly see what’s gone terribly, terribly wrong.
12) Wounds: They brought the community together. Crafters/hunters to harvest the resources, entertainers and doctors to heal. It gives people some much needed down time. Time to just sit back and talk to your fellow players.
After all, if you don’t want to talk and interact with other people, why play an online game? I realize that some of you new people don’t like to be “forced” to interact with other players. But, that’s why they have single player games. The rest of us like relying on others and being relied on. We’re not here to play “alone, together”.
Oh, and it gives the entertainers and medics a purpose in the game.
13) Diversity: 95% of the people I met yesterday were Jedi who had put all their expertise points into healing. Half used guns, half used melee weapons. Is that the diversity you’ve been praising?
14) Jedi: Devs, pull your heads out of your a**es. Did you see thousands of Jedi running around in the original trilogy? Did you see any dueling in the starports? Did you see any, aside from the main characters? Did you hear the “all but extinct” line? Is this “Star Wars: The Parallel Universe” in which millions of inferior Jedi clones were produced? No. No, it’s not.
Sure, “it’s just a game”. And you really, really want to run around with your Jedi, so you can show off your lightsaber. Well… Too God***n bad. The rest of us understand that the Star Wars galaxy doesn’t revolve around twelve year olds scream “PWN” at each other.
Plus, what’s the appeal of being a Jedi if your just as powerful as your average medic? (Sure, you’re stronger now, but everyone on the forums assures me that after all the expertise are in place, every class will be perfectly balanced)
I know, I know, who gives a s**t about gamplay –“it sells boxes”. But, log in to any city in the game, on any server... I don't think that plan worked out too well.
In the beginning, a lot of us were hoping that, one day we could be one of the elite. But only if we worked hard, put in a lot hours and figured out the mystery. “What was the mystery?”, the youngins might ask. It was unlocking the Force Sensitive slot, when it had never been done before and we were given no hints. So, we worked hard to piece together the clues. This was the sole reason some of stayed. Blindly hoping to be the first. And they could single-handedly change the fate of their server (or so we hoped).
Now when anyone thinks of “Jedi” they think of a kid running his mouth on the forums or that endless slapfight they’ve gotten into with the bounty hunters.
15) The GCW: Bring back TEFs. If this a war, and someone walks up and shoots a stormtrooper, I would know that he’s an enemy of the Empire. Don’t want to flagged as an enemy? Stop killing our soldiers.
16) Legacy Quests: Fantastic rewards and experience (about five times as much as you’d get from a terminal). In fact, they’re so good, that you really have no choice but do them. And they’re mind numbingly boring. Keep it mind, I ran missions from the terminals non-stop for months at a time. And, yes, this is worse. Plus, isn’t this supposed to be my story? My adventure? Why am I doing the same thing as everyone else (Excluding crafters and entertainers. None of them have ever left a legacy)?
17) The UI/Targeting System: It’s just clumsy mess. I’ve had to remap half the controls and get a mod to fix the UI. It’s still worse than what we had before.
18) Houses and Maintenance: Last time I played, house maintenance ran off of the bank. And, even when it ran out, the houses stayed around. Switch it back to the old way, so that they run out quicker. Also, put a cap on it. Maybe you can only put two or three months worth of credits in. This way, they’ve got a few months to resub and put a little more money in. If anything, a friend could keep the house going for them.
From what I hear, SOE’s worried about people getting pissed about losing their houses and never wanting to subscribe again. Guys, trust me, that’s not what were concerned about. That’s not even on the radar. We’re begging you to wipe everything and rollback. And, even if we resub in a moment of weakness, we’re not thinking about our house. We’re thinking about how great the game used to be. You’re just pissing off your current subscribers.
19) Instant Travel: Sure, it works with the current system. Why wait around at spaceports when there’s no one else around and the game’s focused on constant, mindless action? Well, again, you need to move away from that. And if you do that, the people come back. Add back ten minute wait times –even for your own ships. (New guys: Your chances of having to actually wait the full ten minutes were very low)
You could use a little down time. You don’t need to be constantly shooting things, or driving to shoot things. It’s nice to have some downtime. Time to socialize with your fellow players. Everyone’s got stories about the great people they’ve met at the spaceport.
Oh, and yes, you were forced to just stand there and wait for no reason at all. And, like camps, we thought it was fun.
20) Where the **** Did My Scout Go?: There were a lot of people who played scouts in the begining. Camping in the middle of nowhere, trapping creatures, harvesting skin and bones... It was the "adventurer" profession and the massive planets filled with new and dangerous wildlife just begged to be explored. Why would you just assume that we wouldn’t want to play as one anymore? And harvesting’s gone, too? Is it that big of a hassle to stop and think about which resource you want to harvest? Why am I looting bone and laser sights off of a lizard?
If you’re going to dumb it down and disregard logic, drop loot altogether and have a system where, everytime I kill something, I have a chance of wining some uber weapon that’s set to my current level. (NOTE: That was sarcasm)
21) The Action Icons: They look ridiculous.
22) PvE: Incredibly easy, boring and bugged. Why is everyone twitching and running circles around me like hyper squirrels? Why can enemies still shoot through solid objects? Why can they run through objects and hide in them? Why can they be running down a hall one second, and reappear behind you the next? Why aren’t my specials firing? Why wasn’t this **** working from the begining?
23) New, Old Content: What’s with all the people thanking the devs for bringing back double layer hotbars? Where the hell have you been? “OMG! They went out of their way to bring back resizable radar… Even though they went out of their way to take it out in the first place.”
We’re supposed to pay them to break parts of the game, pay them while they sit around and tell us that we didn’t like the old system, pay them to bring back a broken version of what we had before, pay them to fix it and then thank them for it?
How do you justify sticking around from month to month when it’s this obvious that they don’t give a **** about fixing the game and they only want to milk you for as long as they can, without doing any real work?
24) “Playing alone, alone”: I played on Bria and Ahazi during the last month. No amount of BS can get you passed the fact that there’s just no one around anymore. Mos Eisley’s got a few people. Every other city, on every other server, is just empty. How is this a constructive criticism? Well, it could easily be fixed by following suggestions #1-23. The community was a huge part of the game for nearly everyone who played back then. I’d say it’s a problem worth looking into.
---------------------------------------------------
I know this isn’t the same game anymore. And I’m treating it that way. The problem is, by itself, this is garbage. Much worse than WoW or EQII. The only thing saving this game is the IP and the old game’s legacy. Sure, it’s improved since the NGE was released. But, how difficult is that? They honestly could have done anything, even pull the plug, and the game would have improved dramatically.
Kids, devs, we’re not doing all this because we hate change. The old game just worked better. It brought in more subscribers and less people complained. I know the old system didn’t feel “Star Warsy” to some of you. But, rest assured, we didn’t need to be saved my Han, chased by Vader or helping out Watto to know that we were in the Star Wars universe. And sure, it was complicated. But I was a sixteen year old kid who had never played an MMO before, and I got the hang of things quick enough. Simple might draw people in easier, but complicated keeps them around for a lot longer.
Final Point: The game’s not “doing better” and it’s not “making progress”. It’s gut shot and simply delusional. Time to seek help or simply lie down and die.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
The sadest thing about this game: Think back 2 years.
I didn't know one person who didn't have 2 accounts, and some had up to 10 I hear.... that's eagerly giving $26 - $100+ to play a game... now, that can't even move a $20 box, and have cancelled expansion because they know they won't sell enough...
And a year ago? Vibrant player cities and most of the people I knew before the CU, still with 2 accounts... Wow, what a difference makes... and a WORLD of a difference 2 years make...
I bet you they have the original CU laying around, and they still just sit there with their thumbs up their asses...
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
My god, how delusional they are!
They actually think THIS is the "magic bullet" NGE publish that is going to make it all better and attract back the 100,000 subscribers they've lost!
Well, there is such a publish, but it is one of the ones between 11 and 14
"The man who exchanges Liberty for Iconic classes is a fool deserving of neither." - Me and Ben Franklin
I have been a lurker here since the NGE hit.
But your excellent post forced me to make my first post.
A big QFE, and Pre-CU FTW.
But mostley a /DeepBow for a well written post.
It's all said before, but I hope this kind of posts are popping up as long as there is no classic servers.
Take care Bissrok, we are many "lurkers" that share your opinions.
Out fucking standing.
Sometimes curse words, are needed for emphasis. In this case this applies no doubt.
I like how the players there that are left say "He should be a consultant for SOE" -- lol I can tell you that you have made more sense then they have right now.
Grant could not even put 18 words together that show some valid response for that.
I agree and wish they listened, I wish they read what we said, I wish Smedley listened to us, I wish that all the emails he got he threw on LECs team and said, JULIO LOOK AT THESE... but no it went down bad and the easy game was made.
All we can now say is "We told you so" and "We wished you listend to us"... But that's it.
At this point we should all just hope for a new Star Wars title MMO... I think that will put this away for good really.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
I have emails somthing like this along with thousands of others to Smed.
I think shayde got himself on the ban list with Mr. Smedley. I had dialog with him the other night and he is on at all hours I can tell you that much.
His sleeping is like alot of ours... null.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Thanks for all the support. I'm honestly amazed that the post is still around. But they're gonna have a hard time justifying a lock. As I said in another post on there I had a long time to write this. Took two weeks for them to fix the Fan Club link so I could join. Then it took another two before they'd let me into the main topics.
EDIT: Nevermind. They're all nice people.A** Still Raw From Your Last SWG Subscription? Come join us at RLMMO.com
In my opinion, here's the basic problem with the game's current developers: They are not the mature group of individuals who created the first version. The developers/designers/managers on the game today are not far from the 12-year-olds running around in the game yelling "PWN!!!111!!11" (either in age or emotional maturity). So, from their perspective, they see the trouble with this as far less of an issue than would a mature developer/designer/manager. They've created a home for their "generation" to play in, so they feel comfortable with it. You, I and the rest of us vets are just "the old guys bitching about bygone days."
Although your post was lucid, pertinent, and accurate, the game has been in the toilet far too long to be able to pull it back together. A restore of the pre-CU game from backup tapes is the only way to get things going in the right direction again, and I think SOE lacks the technical competence in its current crop of developers to make it work. It is for this reason that I now firmly believe that SWG is gone forever.
I can only hope that the heinous mistakes made by SOE serve as an industry wide cautionary tale for all the other MMOs being planned.
Quit.
Nice post thought, Bis. I dont have any hope for anyone at soe paying attention to it. As long as people are still paying their salaries, it doesnt matter how loud they complain, its the money that speaks.
For the Horde!
Thanks
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii.
--In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses.
--The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!
--CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
Sorry to see another person who can string more than two words together get pissed enough to leave the game.
Nancy 'reeding r teh hard' McIntyre must me cackling with glee in her new office...
/sal
and yeah, I'm saving a copy of that. Good stuff.
*********************
So, you all sat in camps and that was fun?
*********************
Great post, playing the game now just makes me wanna puke. Why did they have to ruin everything the game was just fine pre-cu. ooooo how i miss 50v50 base raids.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
ive been in 200+v200+ pvp base raids and not only in 1 place... but in many planets at the same time.
P.S. great post man took me a while to read but its some quality stuff there.
*rubs hands together* excellent..
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
*rubs hands together* excellent..
Do you EVER contribute ANYTHING other than BS Trolling?
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
Not expecting anything, but if I hear anything I'll post.
A** Still Raw From Your Last SWG Subscription? Come join us at RLMMO.com
Great Post! Sums up my feelings about SWG quite well. As it does for probaly all those who have quit.
The original SWG was the ultimate game. Even now, years later I have not found a decent game to replace it with. I haven't found a single game that can keep my attention for more than a few months, some them only a few weeks. Yet I payed to play SWG for nearly 2 years, starting with beta up 'til NGE.
I still hope for SWG's resurrection, but I believe it will never happen.
"Who are you appealing to? Everyone who cares about Star Wars has already come and gone. The casual gamers browsing the MMO sites will me scared off by all the hatred towards the game and this company. The WoW crowd’s not going to try this. Most leave because their game’s too simple. This game’s less complex, easier, buggier, laggier and less populated"
Totally agree.Whoever cared about SWG has actually sampled it before nge.They will hardly get much of a new market .Certainly not the 5m+ chinese from WoW thats for sure.
"Combat: It was much more intense. Dozens of states, balanced professions"
Well from what i tried of nge classes are more balanced now.But then again old system had a skill tree so hard to compare.But there were loads of totally out of sync classes like the jedi.Though thats no excuse for taking a easy route to balance by scaling down professions and removing a skill system.Devs are generally now extremely lazy.Take WoW.Their solution to balancing the paladin and shaman is to let each side have them now.Another sloppy job.
"Back when Jedi’s had perma death (and it meant something to be a Jedi), you could be sure that when you finally managed to kill your target, you probably made that player cry."
I don't think that ever made it live.Skill lose was the best that happened if i recall and even then it too was removed.More evidence of SoE/LA listening too much to the whiners on the jedi forum that brought about a super powerful class with no consequences to exist and later they wonder why all started to grind to jedis !
"Crafting: Eveyone depended on the crafters for everything. They were the core of the game."
Yes,i could not believe that they killed crafting.Come on SWG had the best crafting system in existance by a mile.I know many ppl who played SWG longer then they would have (including me and my large crafting buddies that ran the superstores with me).Now that is a crime!
"Tweaks and Revamps: For the love of God, stop revamping everything. Any time a system‘s needed a few tweaks, you’ve ripped it out and replaced it with something buggier. And lately the new systems are just buggier version of what’s in WoW or something that was in the game at launch"
I said this from day 1 .Fix the bugs.They have bugs dating from launch for god sakesI got a warning on the SWG board early in the life of the game for telling them to hold all new content until the current one was fixed and stop listening to ppl whining about new content till the current one is sorted.The warning was for saying "fook the jedi community and the whining kids that wanna own with a LS".Ofc never happened and there it is today.
"Creature Handler: Everyone likes pets. So, by taking them out, you’ve pissed off everyone"
Agreed.Was a pointless move.
"With a rollback, they could triple the number of subscribers in about a week."
That will be a stupid move though rolling back months.But a classic server with different updates might be a good idea.Will not bring me back though as i am of the firm believe that having a super class in a mmorpg is stupid be it called a jedi or superman or whatever.Once you have a class much better then the rest you have made it the goal of the game.
Good post .