I wonder what Jim Ward of Lucas Arts thinks of this interview. Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, Lucas Arts and SOE made the decision "hand in hand" to go forward with the NGE. If you really look and read the history of this thing, you will know that both of these companies share the responciblity of the NGE. We have no idea what the contracts for SWG have in them.
Here is a thought for you. Blixtev has admitted there is a shut off date for SWG but its years off. What servers are they going to use for the new EQ game?
I don't see it as much of an apology, It covers very few of the actual complaints against SOE. It is a good start. Seems to me many of you are a little lost in time. 3 years??? It has not been 2 yet, the NGE went live in November 2005. Maybe some are counting the CU as the start of the fall, Even though I didn't like the mechanics of the CU it did bring back quite a few of my guildies. They all left again at the NGE. Smedley, No apology is complete without an attempt to make amends, you offer us nothing but words so you get nothing but more angry words back. I played from July 2003 till January 2006 and then played on and off till Sept. 22, 2007 It is better than it was in Nov 2005 by a long shot but it is still miles away from a game I am willing to pay for. <---Yoda = Smed <---Sheep = Current Players
Hmmm, I wonder what Jim Ward of Lucas Arts thinks of this interview. Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, Lucas Arts and SOE made the decision "hand in hand" to go forward with the NGE. If you really look and read the history of this thing, you will know that both of these companies share the responciblity of the NGE. We have no idea what the contracts for SWG have in them. Here is a thought for you. Blixtev has admitted there is a shut off date for SWG but its years off. What servers are they going to use for the new EQ game?
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
i never liked SWG pre-nge or after, but just wanted to say something about it.
everyone wants SOE to roll back the servers, and ppl are saying hes still not listening to the playerbase and wont do it. whose the playerbase? the CURRENT playerbase of SWG are the players playing NOW. those players have been playing with the NGE rules for 2years now. If SOE changed it back to PRE-NGE, then how would their current playerbase feel? Many Vets already said they would never play a SOE game ever again. why bring it back when ya cant guarantee ppl will play it? SOE would just make more enemies by doing this.
Yesterday, Warcry’s Dana Massey published an interview with Sony Online Entertainment’s CEO, John Smedley. In the interview, Smedley apologized for the New Game Experience released into Star Wars Galaxies in 2005. The move, which has been a perpetual thorn in SOE’s side ever since, was made without input from the game’s players and with little to no warning. The article quotes Smedley: "With the NGE, I'm sorry about the mistake we made," he told us. "We screwed up and didn't listen to the fans when we should have, and it's not a mistake we're going to make again." He goes on to say that the mistake was “not bringing the fans into the mix”, which he described as the “cardinal sin of not listening, but assuming....” Also in the article, Smedley discusses the future of SOE’s projects and even goes so far as to state that the company “fully intends” to make another EverQuest MMORPG.
No ones gonna care until they fix the mistake they made. Their apology is trying to get the fans back thats it. Blah blah blah blah
This guy has lied to the gaming community for years and years. We are to expect somehow that he:
a) learned from his mistakes
b) is sorry (I would love to hear an appology for blaming the fans for the NGE and all the nasty they said)
c) admits to lying and fraud
d) cares about anything but $
e) has changed anything about his standard method of operation?
What has he done other than say "we screwed up"..... talk is cheap smed. You better believe he wouldn't be here is SWG was remotely succesful or functional.
Mark my words, this guy would throw his mother under a bus if it could get him some more revenue. Thats why all he talks about is cash models and revenue systems. When asked about any game mechanic he starts stuttering "art and stuff" was what he said about GnH... Yeah he is a real gamer.
Anyone else notice he said it was a mistake to make a sequel to everquest and then in the next sentence say they want to make another sequel? He really gets it.
He waited 2 years to admit that he screwed us, 2 freaking years? We pleaded with him, we got down on our knees and begged for this bastard to roll-back. Now that it doesn't matter anymore, he comes clean. Take your apology John and shove it up your ass along with this pile of fecal matter known as the NGE. Why am I so angry? I played SWG since launch and all I wanted to do was unlock Jedi. It wasnt to be uber, it was the challenge. I finally unlocked and a week later the NGE hits. I didnt even get a chance to enjoy it. Instead I get compensated with a cloak and a shitty buff. years of work flushed down the toilet.
So he stole my game 2 years ago... And apologizes, without giving me the game back?
Sorry, apology not accepted, not until the theft is cleared up.
And I can easily say, that no version of the NGE will ever be good enough to make up for the theft.... Especially not a NGE on skeleton crew and smaller playerbase than Archlord and Dark & Light(or whatever that scam game was called).
Give me my game back and apologize, and SOE will get access to my wallet again.
the key thing there is, he admits they screwed up, apologizes for it, but wont bring it back. I think the best thing SWG could do, would be to make a classic server with the original rule set. I would personally resub for that, and probably bring a few people with me. I think it would be the most popular server with in a few hours, and they would eventually end up having to open up 2 or 3 like DAOC's classic server did. Will they be smart enough to do it? doubtful
No one could have reasonably assumed the NGE was the right step forward and that's nothing to say the way in which it was implemented. Sorry but your apology is over shadowed by your incompetence, arrogance and complete disregard for your community. That goes for anyone involved with creating and forcibly implementing the down right atrocious NGE.
Any other business and you all would be sued and jobless.
Id settle with them bringing back all the old skill trees and gettig rid of the iconic classes and id personally wouldnt mind starting from scratch on grinding all the way from lvl 1 through mastery unlock for jedi to jedi master once again.
Village grind, quests.. what ever.
Wumi - Bloodfin
(2 years of playing WoW.. epic gear, big guild, good ppl and still its doesnt fill the huge hole in my heart that used to be SWG preCU)
2 years later, apology accepted, thanks Smed. In order for you to get be to come back to SWG I will require an apology from Nancy Mcintyre for this idiotic quote.
"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." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
Next, I will request the removal of the words "Star Warsy" and "Iconic" from the English dictionary.
After that see what you can do about all that nonsense going on in the middle east.
Maybe try to tackle the ridiculous beer prices in sports stadiums around the country.
Imagine you have a beautiful car, that you bought and improved it for years, then, one day, you go to a ride, as you always do and.. there is no more car!! Your car was robbed, and in its place its a donkey... 2 years later, the thief, who never admited that the car was better than the doneky, and always told you that he made you a favor robbing it, finally come and tells "Ok, you are right, it wasnt nice what I made to you, would you apologize me for robbing you? By the way, as you see I am a nice guy now, I admited my mistake robbing you. Dont you want to come back and use the nice donkey and pay me a rent for it? The car back? I am sorry, but I cant do it, it wouldnt be fair give you back the car.. But, hey!! See, the donkey is smiling to you!!! It likes you!! And you can even paint it to make it looks like your old car!!! Cmon, rent it from me, I am a nice guy, I apologized, I would neeever again rob your donkey!!"
Seems to me many of you are a little lost in time. 3 years??? It has not been 2 yet, the NGE went live in November 2005. Maybe some are counting the CU as the start of the fall, Even though I didn't like the mechanics of the CU it did bring back quite a few of my guildies.
Perhaps some people started their time-count at Publish 9...
Appology accepted, If they would bring back the game as it was, hologrinding and all. I would drop everything i was doing to subscribe to SWG again, i would be instantly hooked and go back to playing 10 hours a day...
Wait, he didn't apologize for the NGE! He apologized for their mistakes which I think he meant that they could have made a better NGE, lol. Maybe it's just how I read it. What do you guys think?
I myself don't really care anymore either way, I still play SWG but that's cause of friends I still have and play a little EQ2 cause it's a fun game.
Hmmm, I wonder what Jim Ward of Lucas Arts thinks of this interview. Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, Lucas Arts and SOE made the decision "hand in hand" to go forward with the NGE. If you really look and read the history of this thing, you will know that both of these companies share the responciblity of the NGE. We have no idea what the contracts for SWG have in them. Here is a thought for you. Blixtev has admitted there is a shut off date for SWG but its years off. What servers are they going to use for the new EQ game?
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"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." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
To those a little slow on the uptake, here's a newsflash:
John Smedley tends to talk out of his posterior from time to time.
Please don't hold your breath waiting for EQ III or PlanetSide + to come down the pipeline. For interviews, he just pulls things out of the air folks, please learn this eventually. They don't even have any plans or resources dedicated to any new Everquest title, and PlanetSide is moribund.
Hmmm, I wonder what Jim Ward of Lucas Arts thinks of this interview. Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, Lucas Arts and SOE made the decision "hand in hand" to go forward with the NGE. If you really look and read the history of this thing, you will know that both of these companies share the responciblity of the NGE. We have no idea what the contracts for SWG have in them. Here is a thought for you. Blixtev has admitted there is a shut off date for SWG but its years off. What servers are they going to use for the new EQ game?
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"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." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
If you click on and read the article at war cry. Smed says it would be as unfair to change back now as it was to change the first time.
I actually agree with him on that point. The one thing I don't understand , and is totally obvious. Why not open some classic servers .. all players start day 1 no transfers?
Why is that so hard to do... they will a ton of money off it. Further more SOE itself has proven that concept to infact work.They have lots of classic EQ servers that are making them money.
Yes changing current NGE back would be bad. Open 1 classic server and see how long till its maxed pop non stop. How can that be a bad thing, they admitted NGE was a mistake, and are not dumb enough to roll back now. But its hard to believe there dumb enough to open the door and let in all the customers like myself DYING to throw tons of cash at them with multiple accounts again like we use to.
Sony is the only corporation I ever seen that tries to drive customers away and when they want back in at any cost they do everything possible to stop people from handing them Millions of dollars.
Well.. I guess at least SOE can claim to be "different and original" then all other Corp. I wonder if stopping customers from entering a business can now be referred to as "iconic and star warsy marketing approach"?
anyway.. I gave up on SOE having a clue to what the industry wants. Lets all Enjoy Age of Conan and the host of many other great upcoming MMO's this spring.
I loved SWG... but all things Die... Farewell SWG.. Smed has tossed the last pile of dirt on your grave with appolgizing and still not listening to public wanting Classic servers.
Thank you Smed for at least having the Balls to say sorry.. I thank you for that and no longer hate you. even if your still a clueless idiot.
Miataka (+many sub variation of that) ~WoW (Kael'Thas, USA) MiaTaka ~ RF On-line (Fire Server) -Mia- takahashi ~SWG (Europe-chimaera) Miataki Valeinca ~EQ 2 (everfrost) MiaTaka Soyinka ~Second Life
To tell you the truth, I don't believe this apology was meant for the gamer's. I believe it was a merely a act to save face in the eyes of the media and other companies looking for powerhouse publishers.
Since the controversial implementations of the CU and NGE without giving consideration to the opinions of thier playerbase, most of whom strongly opposed the changes, SWG has lost subs and SOE has been met with strong negativity in everything they do by players, media and other companies. This poorly implemented decision is now known through the MMO world as a model of what not to do and will continue to haunt SOE in all thier future games. They found this out the hard way when PE went public trying to deny SOE would have any decision making concerning one of thier upcoming MMO's. I believe this was the spark that caused smed to even consider a public apology.
In closing, apology not accepted. While I give him credit for finally giving one, I don't believe it was given for the right reasons.
To tell you the truth, I don't believe this apology was meant for the gamer's. I believe it was a merely a act to save face in the eyes of the media and other companies looking for powerhouse publishers. Since the controversial implementations of the CU and NGE without giving consideration to the opinions of thier playerbase, most of whom strongly opposed the changes, SWG has lost subs and SOE has been met with strong negativity in everything they do by players, media and other companies. This poorly implemented decision is now known through the MMO world as a model of what not to do and will continue to haunt SOE in all thier future games. They found this out the hard way when PE went public trying to deny SOE would have any decision making concerning one of thier upcoming MMO's. I believe this was the spark that caused smed to even consider a public apology. In closing, apology not accepted. While I give him credit for finally giving one, I don't believe it was given for the right reasons.
How many times do you get to make the same mistake and apologize for it before you get fired in this industry?
Seriously I refuse to play another SOE game as long as they let Smed work there. He has screwed every single MMO he's ever touched up with his "I know better what the players want than the players" attitude. Guy should go back to playing DnD in the library with his friends and stop trying to make games.
Comments
Hmmm,
I wonder what Jim Ward of Lucas Arts thinks of this interview. Contrary to conspiracy beliefs, Lucas Arts and SOE made the decision "hand in hand" to go forward with the NGE. If you really look and read the history of this thing, you will know that both of these companies share the responciblity of the NGE. We have no idea what the contracts for SWG have in them.
Here is a thought for you. Blixtev has admitted there is a shut off date for SWG but its years off. What servers are they going to use for the new EQ game?
www.youtube.com/watch
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
i never liked SWG pre-nge or after, but just wanted to say something about it.
everyone wants SOE to roll back the servers, and ppl are saying hes still not listening to the playerbase and wont do it. whose the playerbase? the CURRENT playerbase of SWG are the players playing NOW. those players have been playing with the NGE rules for 2years now. If SOE changed it back to PRE-NGE, then how would their current playerbase feel? Many Vets already said they would never play a SOE game ever again. why bring it back when ya cant guarantee ppl will play it? SOE would just make more enemies by doing this.
just my thought on this.
No ones gonna care until they fix the mistake they made. Their apology is trying to get the fans back thats it. Blah blah blah blah
Snake Oil Salesman
This guy has lied to the gaming community for years and years. We are to expect somehow that he:
a) learned from his mistakes
b) is sorry (I would love to hear an appology for blaming the fans for the NGE and all the nasty they said)
c) admits to lying and fraud
d) cares about anything but $
e) has changed anything about his standard method of operation?
What has he done other than say "we screwed up"..... talk is cheap smed. You better believe he wouldn't be here is SWG was remotely succesful or functional.
Mark my words, this guy would throw his mother under a bus if it could get him some more revenue. Thats why all he talks about is cash models and revenue systems. When asked about any game mechanic he starts stuttering "art and stuff" was what he said about GnH... Yeah he is a real gamer.
Anyone else notice he said it was a mistake to make a sequel to everquest and then in the next sentence say they want to make another sequel? He really gets it.
He waited 2 years to admit that he screwed us, 2 freaking years? We pleaded with him, we got down on our knees and begged for this bastard to roll-back. Now that it doesn't matter anymore, he comes clean. Take your apology John and shove it up your ass along with this pile of fecal matter known as the NGE. Why am I so angry? I played SWG since launch and all I wanted to do was unlock Jedi. It wasnt to be uber, it was the challenge. I finally unlocked and a week later the NGE hits. I didnt even get a chance to enjoy it. Instead I get compensated with a cloak and a shitty buff. years of work flushed down the toilet.
So he stole my game 2 years ago... And apologizes, without giving me the game back?
Sorry, apology not accepted, not until the theft is cleared up.
And I can easily say, that no version of the NGE will ever be good enough to make up for the theft.... Especially not a NGE on skeleton crew and smaller playerbase than Archlord and Dark & Light(or whatever that scam game was called).
Give me my game back and apologize, and SOE will get access to my wallet again.
BRING ON SWG CLASSIC!!
Wll at least he's finnally apologised and admitted it was a mistake. Perhaps now they can move on and actually resolve the issue itself.
Too little, too late.
No one could have reasonably assumed the NGE was the right step forward and that's nothing to say the way in which it was implemented. Sorry but your apology is over shadowed by your incompetence, arrogance and complete disregard for your community. That goes for anyone involved with creating and forcibly implementing the down right atrocious NGE.
Any other business and you all would be sued and jobless.
Finally!
Now prove it!
Id settle with them bringing back all the old skill trees and gettig rid of the iconic classes and id personally wouldnt mind starting from scratch on grinding all the way from lvl 1 through mastery unlock for jedi to jedi master once again.
Village grind, quests.. what ever.
Wumi - Bloodfin
(2 years of playing WoW.. epic gear, big guild, good ppl and still its doesnt fill the huge hole in my heart that used to be SWG preCU)
Wumi - SWG - Bloodfin - Cancelled
Wumi - WoW - Eu-Kazzak - Cancelled
Bulldozer - Aion - Eu-Kahrun - Cancelled
Wumi - Rift - EU-Riptalon - Cancelled
2 years later, apology accepted, thanks Smed. In order for you to get be to come back to SWG I will require an apology from Nancy Mcintyre for this idiotic quote.
"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." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
Next, I will request the removal of the words "Star Warsy" and "Iconic" from the English dictionary.
After that see what you can do about all that nonsense going on in the middle east.
Maybe try to tackle the ridiculous beer prices in sports stadiums around the country.
Thanks dude.
STOP PERSISTANCE
Just give us a CLASSIC PRE-CU SERVER.
that would be the real apology.
Imagine you have a beautiful car, that you bought and improved it for years, then, one day, you go to a ride, as you always do and.. there is no more car!! Your car was robbed, and in its place its a donkey... 2 years later, the thief, who never admited that the car was better than the doneky, and always told you that he made you a favor robbing it, finally come and tells "Ok, you are right, it wasnt nice what I made to you, would you apologize me for robbing you? By the way, as you see I am a nice guy now, I admited my mistake robbing you. Dont you want to come back and use the nice donkey and pay me a rent for it? The car back? I am sorry, but I cant do it, it wouldnt be fair give you back the car.. But, hey!! See, the donkey is smiling to you!!! It likes you!! And you can even paint it to make it looks like your old car!!! Cmon, rent it from me, I am a nice guy, I apologized, I would neeever again rob your donkey!!"
Perhaps some people started their time-count at Publish 9...
Appology accepted, If they would bring back the game as it was, hologrinding and all. I would drop everything i was doing to subscribe to SWG again, i would be instantly hooked and go back to playing 10 hours a day...
Wait, he didn't apologize for the NGE! He apologized for their mistakes which I think he meant that they could have made a better NGE, lol. Maybe it's just how I read it. What do you guys think?
I myself don't really care anymore either way, I still play SWG but that's cause of friends I still have and play a little EQ2 cause it's a fun game.
Fight Me! http://zunarn.mybrute.com
And there you have it.....twenty posts after mine, and we have it again. Knew it would happen. And I'm sure the apologists won't stop. How hard is this to comprehend. How can any sort of peace be reached if we can't even agree on the plain and obvious. It's been stated clearly by Smed himself. LA is no longer to blame. The HEAD of SOE himself has taken responsibility for the NGE. He's laid it at his feet. It's clear. SOE is responsible for the NGE.Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"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." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
To those a little slow on the uptake, here's a newsflash:
John Smedley tends to talk out of his posterior from time to time.
Please don't hold your breath waiting for EQ III or PlanetSide + to come down the pipeline. For interviews, he just pulls things out of the air folks, please learn this eventually. They don't even have any plans or resources dedicated to any new Everquest title, and PlanetSide is moribund.
SWG Team Mtg.
Why are people STILL trying to give this guy/company a free pass, even AFTER he's made the point moot.
Stop defending their crappy decision by trying to pass off some (or all) of the buck.
Smed said SOE's responsible. Good enough. Next debate point, please.
God this can be so frustrating.
Oh, thats right,
John did it all. There were no exit polls done by Lucas Marketing when players quit after launch. John conducted the Market research that told Lucas Marketing what the common player expected from SWG. John told Nancy Mcintyre to say:
"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." Nancy McIntyre, SWG Senior Director / Lucasarts
John Smedley told Jim Ward (V.P. of Lucas Arts) that it was a great idea to ship product on time rather than complete so it would meet the Marketing Events of Star Wars.
Look, every major event that happen in SWG was releated to some Star Wars alternate product. Do you remeber when the first Jedi unlocked? Do you know what she was doing? If you read the reports she was just out hunting Pikets when she got the music and was told she unlocked. The announcment went out over all servers. Everyone saw it, but I didn't. Why didn't I see it? I was watching the priemere of the Animated Clone Wars micro series. She unlocked at the same Five minutes it was on. Thats right Jedi was turned on to permote another Star Wars event. Also, why are there so many Prequal objects in the game instead of Classic items?
Lucas Arts has always had a strong hand in the direction of any Star Wars product. SWG is not exempt.
The NGE was secretly developed away from the live development team on SWG. We had the revamp to CH a month before the announcement. The week before the team had finished its first pass on Squad Leader then all stopped as it was told to the team about the NGE. People quit or were fired when the news broke (Tiggs anyone). A good portion of the Live team was also working on the new expansion(ToOW) so where did this secret dev team come from that layed out the initial design of the NGE?
Many feel here that they have the majority voice and know what sells a game. In truth, if you are reading this forum and posting you fall in the Hardcore Minorty that will devote the time and effort to a single game. The defined Common Majority that most MMO companies seek don't care about these forums, what other players say, as it would cut into thier fun time. Thats the target audiance that WOW won and all covet.
All numbers are debatable, I make no hard facts as SOE and LA do not want you to know. SWG might have had 300-325 thousand subs after launch (June 26, 2003). When many customers found that SWG was pretty common in mechanics for a fantasy MMO and didn't have instant epic appeal, they bailed. Subscriptions started to slide. Lucas Arts had exit polls for those players and kept that info to color the picture of thier Market Research. Subscriptions started to slide as SWG was buggy, unbalanced, incomplete and had no strong direction as a "sandbox" MMO. This had to upset Lucas Arts as Linage had a million subs. The Star Wars IP should sell many times that. Strip the Star Was Skin from SWG at that time and you have a very involved MMO with some wonderful features (Crafting) but an incredible grind fest. Koster's baby never got to grow up.
By the time WOW launched, SWG had slumped in subs to under 300k or 275k. Lucas Arts was not pleased that a mediocre IP such as the Warcraft RTS could have such sales performance. This propeled the the two companies, SOE and LA, to do the Combat Upgrade. Performance with the CU was not good and more subs were lost instead of gained (maybe dropped to 225k). In about six months, the secert dev team came back with the NGE. New people showed up from Lucas Arts (Torres and McIntyre) to spin this new direction of SWG. It was better for the game sales performance as it would appeal to the more casual player. They were not trying to be ground breaking but sales effective in the MMO market. The NGE failed. Marketing had always tryed to figure out why SWG was not succesful. What was the magic formula that would open it up to the WOW market?
At no time in the history of SWG (Pre-CU, CU, NGE or today) has the game been bug free, stable, complete, polished or directed to the average acceptance of the common MMO market.
This was compounded when WOW launched. WOW lowered the learning curve and requirments for entry into a MMO thus broadening its customer base but raised the bar on acceptable quality of product at release. Lucas Arts has been trying to catch up ever since.
But John Smedley is totally at fault. He accepted the deal from Lucas Arts in the first place and has been damned for it ever since.
EDIT: To make this WOW simple, Anything changed, added or altered in Star Wars Galaxies must be approved by Lucas Arts by contract.
Fan-frickin-tastic post.
If you click on and read the article at war cry. Smed says it would be as unfair to change back now as it was to change the first time.
I actually agree with him on that point. The one thing I don't understand , and is totally obvious. Why not open some classic servers .. all players start day 1 no transfers?
Why is that so hard to do... they will a ton of money off it. Further more SOE itself has proven that concept to infact work.They have lots of classic EQ servers that are making them money.
Yes changing current NGE back would be bad. Open 1 classic server and see how long till its maxed pop non stop. How can that be a bad thing, they admitted NGE was a mistake, and are not dumb enough to roll back now. But its hard to believe there dumb enough to open the door and let in all the customers like myself DYING to throw tons of cash at them with multiple accounts again like we use to.
Sony is the only corporation I ever seen that tries to drive customers away and when they want back in at any cost they do everything possible to stop people from handing them Millions of dollars.
Well.. I guess at least SOE can claim to be "different and original" then all other Corp. I wonder if stopping customers from entering a business can now be referred to as "iconic and star warsy marketing approach" ?
anyway.. I gave up on SOE having a clue to what the industry wants. Lets all Enjoy Age of Conan and the host of many other great upcoming MMO's this spring.
I loved SWG... but all things Die... Farewell SWG.. Smed has tossed the last pile of dirt on your grave with appolgizing and still not listening to public wanting Classic servers.
Thank you Smed for at least having the Balls to say sorry.. I thank you for that and no longer hate you. even if your still a clueless idiot.
Miataka (+many sub variation of that)
~WoW (Kael'Thas, USA)
MiaTaka
~ RF On-line (Fire Server)
-Mia- takahashi
~SWG (Europe-chimaera)
Miataki Valeinca
~EQ 2 (everfrost)
MiaTaka Soyinka
~Second Life
To tell you the truth, I don't believe this apology was meant for the gamer's. I believe it was a merely a act to save face in the eyes of the media and other companies looking for powerhouse publishers.
Since the controversial implementations of the CU and NGE without giving consideration to the opinions of thier playerbase, most of whom strongly opposed the changes, SWG has lost subs and SOE has been met with strong negativity in everything they do by players, media and other companies. This poorly implemented decision is now known through the MMO world as a model of what not to do and will continue to haunt SOE in all thier future games. They found this out the hard way when PE went public trying to deny SOE would have any decision making concerning one of thier upcoming MMO's. I believe this was the spark that caused smed to even consider a public apology.
In closing, apology not accepted. While I give him credit for finally giving one, I don't believe it was given for the right reasons.
----
Exactly! Word for word this is spot on!
How many times do you get to make the same mistake and apologize for it before you get fired in this industry?
Seriously I refuse to play another SOE game as long as they let Smed work there. He has screwed every single MMO he's ever touched up with his "I know better what the players want than the players" attitude. Guy should go back to playing DnD in the library with his friends and stop trying to make games.