SWG: Tidbits

[eyelleye]

I cancelled my SWG accounts back in Dec or Jan (not entirely sure I recall). To be fair, I cancelled WoW too (for much the same reason... boredom & money). I've started playing EvE again, but only likely to play it a bit here and there as time allows. My point? Im still following those MMOs with a bit of interest... more so SWG than WoW as I still have a soft spot for what it could be (maybe someday hopefully who knows). Read the following from Smed posted on the official forums and I have to hand it to the guy... Im right well impressed with the no-bullshit response. I'm not ready to jump back in right now because I don't have the free time to play... but, for whatever reason, I'm impressed and I hope this sort of thing continues (I should note that this was in response to someone elses question, not just an informational start of thread sorta thing):


The SWG community has been voting with it's feet since the NGE came about. Either we end up being right about our ability to turn the ship around and make a game that's BETTER than it was before, or we were wrong and we fail. Either way we were losing subs before the NGE and believe it or not, we are losing them at a slower rate than before. I'm not going to pretend we didn't lose a bunch of subs from this. We did. And I don't think the game is where it needs to be yet to aquire new subs. But it's getting there with each and every publish.

At the end of the day there are a lot of people in this community that wonder why we did this? Why did we "deliberately" try and piss people off. Obviously that wasn't our intent. This is a business and we needed to improve the results of the business. Did we make a mistake? Maybe.. but only time is going to tell on that one. One thing is certain. We made a mistake with how we presented it to the community, and for that I'm sorry. I still think it was a needed thing though. It's not as simple as "you should have just fixed the things we were complaining about". That doesn't address the very real fact that what we had was a hardcore game that wasn't going to attract the mass audience that the Star Wars IP brings to the table.

Smed

Found it here: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=devdigest&message.id=18

[eyelleye]

More related:




Mr Smedley -

With all due respet, you have ALREADY failed. One only needs walk through any starport in the game to realize this. What you call "rhetoric" is the community outcry of seeing an exemplary MMO essentially scrapped and replaced with a pale imitation. This isnt "counterstrike" - there's a reason that 99% of MMO's use "turn based combat" - its because it makes the game accessible to people of all ages, people who dont have lightning reflexes or flat out dont enjoy the "FPS" style of play.

The old interface system was INTUITIVE - this one is not - i shouldnt have to press 3 keys to open a radial menu on an inventory item in my back pack.

Your general message seems to be "yes, we hear you. We know you dont like what we are doing and we are going to continue with it anyway so shut up" we wont. Period.

I understand completely - you did the math under the CU and pre-cu systems and saw that the game was losing more players than it was taking in - and you decided that you needed a major change to bring in new players. While thats a well thought out plan, the implementation leaves MUCH to be desired. If your people can't market Star Wars - then perhaps they shouldn't be in marketing. This is a built in audience. You fail to realize that MOST Star Wars fans are 30 and older we saw the originals in the theatre the FIRST time. Yet you are marketing to the wrong age group. The last 3 movies didnt have anywhere near the cultural impact the first three did.

Dont buy it? Look at the servers! Where once you could stroll through Cnet and see 20 or 30 players - you dont see ANY.

Its time for change. again. If you cannt go back, then go forward and give us a workable turn based combat system. I lead a guild that boasts 400+ members - of which maybe 10 are left - the significant majority of whom left because of these changes. and please- be aware - its not only HOW you presented the NGE - its WHAT you presented that casued the upraor. If you had rolled out a more workable system, a more accessible one - you would not be where you are now.

Please, admit that you have to "make the game better" - by doing what the commuinty wants.

Earlier in this thread you "called out" one of the other posters. Well I;m calling you out. My challenge is - email EVERY user who EVER had a SWG account with a poll - which of the three combat systems do they prefer? GO from there. It may not bring a flood of new players into the game but you would certainly get back a loot of what you lost. PLEASE - do this - or .. resign. Really. Its time.

Apologies in advance - not intended as a flame or troll - just one man stating his opinion.


Let me address your point head on. - SWG never attracted the size audience that the Star Wars license delivered in the first place. One of those reasons was combat wasn't exciting enough. We have done enough research on the people who quit or people that didn't purchase the game to know this is a hard, brutal cold fact. Could we have gone a different direction with the combat? Yes. Could we in the future change this direction? Yes. Do I think we will? No. Why? Because I don't believe that this will be an issue if we solve the other half of the equation - making the professions feel different... and making the content really exciting. If we asked you all to rank Combat vs. the loss of professions, I'm betting the loss of professions will "win" every time... I don't think the new combat style is the main thing that people are bothered by. It's the broad strokes changes to the rest of the game. What we've done is to get the game to a much more basic level that we can build on. I submit to you that if we achieve our other goals, this style of combat won't be an issue. The fact is the data we have suggest that for the people that DO sign up for the game they like the combat. For the people that don't, combat isn't the main issue we're losing them.

Smed

From my POV, Smed is entirely right. From a crafters & smuggler POV, I kinda liked the new combat system... it was interesting to me. It was the other shit they did that pissed me off. Trim the professions... sure... but damn that was drastic & harsh and dull. I miss the days after launch being able to wander into any major city, go into the cantina and low and behold there were folks actually present... wtf happened Sony?

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=devdigest&message.id=17

[eyelleye]

The following is interesting to me with my developer hat on:


ROFL

Ok. Without engaging in the obvious "we'll bust out our lawyers and sue people" rhetoric let me be blunt - if someone can write a SWG server emulator that's any good please apply for a job here because you have to be pretty damn good. You also better be able to know SQL pretty well and have an oracle database and a ton of other important stuff. This emulator stuff is nothing more than a hobby for some really smart people. You don't seriously think we're worried about this do you (and I mean that in a very positive way btw)? I take it as the ultimate compliment. Now, if some genius ever actually pulled it off.. well that would be another matter entirely. In EverQuest a couple of really smart guys made something called ShowEQ which basically showed off a bunch of stuff we didn't intend for players to see. I ended up hiring the key developer of that program. He's a really smart programmer named Roy Eltham. He actually broke our encryption. He's still here.

Smed

[eyelleye]

More bits:


I'm only trying to be blunt in saying "this is our direction". I do still think engaging in the community and being a part of the change for the better is a good thing too.. obviously my message isn't "accept the NGE or quit.. we don't care". We absolutely care. Do you think it's fun for our devs to read these boards? Don't you think they want to make this game the best that they can? We all take pride in what we do. I would like nothing more than to be reading stories about how amazing the NGE is and how we've turned the game around. I expect to read those stories someday. Until we're there though, it's nothing but hard work and long hours with everybody examining every decision we make with a microscope. Fair enough.

Smed

[eyelleye]

Profession bits:



I respectfully disagree with your position on this. The profession system had fundemental flaws that couldn't be corrected and still be able to both balance the game and add meaningful content that made each profession really matter and be differentiated from the others. Was crafting absolutely the most amazing part of the game? Probably IMO. Can it still be a major part of the game? Hell yes.. and it will be. BUT that needs to be balanced with the fact that adventuring and killing things needed to have meaningful rewards as well to reach a more mainstream audience. I really hope you can see this point even if you don't agree with it.

Smed


can you elaborate on this more, i dont understand what about the old profession system you found to be flawed. to me it just looked liek you wanted to simplify it. honestly smed i know your sticking with your guns but we are all telling you that it was a bad idea to simply the profession diversity. if your gonna stick by it, its on you but we are telling you. noone that played the old versions like this profession system more then the old. the old one was a better system. im not saying bring the whole thing back, but i just hope you guys have a positive compromise coming soon.

Sure - I'll elaborate.

What exactly was the difference between most of the combat professions? There really wasn't one unfortunately. Adding meaningful content for over 30 professions just wasn't something we were capable of. We bit off more than we could chew. Also, the fact that a person who had seen the movies won't know what most of those professions were presented a real problem for aquisition.

Smed

[berowe]

Nice to see the chaos still raging. I think they should just yank the daggone game afore they go into the dark red. I'd say if any website could have ADD it'd be swg's-- "Pweez someone come playy with meee!" --it's flashier than most pornsites! not that I've been to any...

Whats yer EVEy name Eye? I'll come gank your ass in my carrier.

[eyelleye]

ROTFL... yeah, I just have the forums bookmarked these days... makes it easier to go directly to the crap I'm looking for.

I just re-activated my EvE account & started a newb about 2 weeks ago or so... so, no doubts you could kick my arse. I've three characters, but only playing one at the moment, Wash Maleen (my newbie). The other two are: Jallian & Slant Tarai Jallian is probably the eldest account... Slant will probably go by the wayside when I have things figured out and want to make a new character.

I'm still figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing, so if you have any good websites or tutorials or whatever, send em over. Been dividing my time between a bit of flight sim (not so much atm), EvE, & ES:Oblivion on the 360. We've a big condo conference next weekend, a "product" launch at work on the 10th, taxes on the 15th & my exam at work to flex to the next level somewhere in the middle of all that & til the end of the month. Needless to say, it'll be a busy month. =)

[berowe]

http://eve.grismar.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=WikiHome

Purty good site. I like how ship setups can vary so greatly in EVE- but most good strategies involve getting a good armor or shield 'tank' up and wearing down the other guy's capacitor- theres plenty of tips at that site. I've played for a few months-schedule permitting- tried corps (guild/pa) and solo, it's a blast. I'd try pirating, but there's supposedly gonna be some cool Empire vs Empire action coming up in an update soon so I'll keep my reputation up til then at least. My char is Berowe- shoot me a mail sometime, I hang in Amarr space mainly.

[berowe]

BTW with yer new guy if you're making him as a fighter I'd recommend going with the new Amarr/Khanid bloodline- they are able to have higher perception stats than the older bloodlines so you would be able to train things like gunnery/ship skills a good bit faster than the rest of us.

[eyelleye]

BTW with yer new guy if you're making him as a fighter I'd recommend going with the new Amarr/Khanid bloodline- they are able to have higher perception stats than the older bloodlines so you would be able to train things like gunnery/ship skills a good bit faster than the rest of us.

I created me a new one named AukeNu thats of the Amarr/Khanid bloodline. I've done mining and don't care to do that again... but I'm perfectly happy blowing shit up. Going through the tutorial again to familiarize myself with all the crap I missed the first time... so far so good.

[Cray]

Holly Crap its been way to long. How are ya'll doing these days. How long have you 2 been on Eve and What time are ya'll usualy on? I check in there every once and a while (basicaly when the wife isn't home). I actualy enjoy a game where I don't have to be online to get anywhere in it. Names Ilad Raton there.
Anyways glad to see you freaks are still in good health and what not, physical atleast 8p. I'll try stopping by more often... this once every six months or so starts to seem like a class reunion or worse.. have a good one

[eyelleye]

LOL. I've been working on my training skills lately (got learning up to 5 and the rest up to 4 working on 5)... Its been nice because I've been busy lately and so I can just set up stuff to train when I can't play... and when I can play its at a pace I can seemingly enjoy. I'll look yah up, or at least add yah to my friends thingy in-game next time Im around. Good to see you're still alive too. =)

[James]

I should dip back into EVE I think. My gaming is also now a case of playing when the missus isn't in (which is on Mondays and Wednesdays when I start work late) I'm gradually going to sneak in a bit of gaming here and there but it's tough. Shame the right ports are blocked at work...

Can't wait till they re-vamp the graphics engine :) Though not sure how well that'll run on my laptop (getting rid of gaming rig, computer room will be a baby room in a couple of years so selling it now while it's still worth something!)

[eyelleye]

I haven't been reading the EvE news of late, but didnt know they were working on re-doing the graphics engine... didn't know it really needed it I guess (still looks good on my 7800GS or whatever the hell I bought a few months ago).

Nice thing about EvE is I can still work on stuff even when I cant play... just login once a day when the skills are low and once a week when they aint. When I can actually spend some more time in the game, I'll have a bunch of skills trained. =)

[berowe]

I runned into cray in-game- well... through eve-mails, and been trying to direct him to my area of space, but he's a little slow... I agree with ya on the pace eyie, with my classes and other garbage I can't reliably play- I'd be hopelessly left behind in any other MMOG, but EVE is jusss right. I've taken 2 month-long breaks since starting and am about to take another and it hasn't hurt me one bit in game.

[eyelleye]

Yeah... I haven't actively played much in the last month, but I've continued to train skills. I need to start playin again to make some money... but, I don't feel I'm losing ground not actively playing. It's my kinda pace of a game really... I don't feel guilty for not loging in and playing.