The truth?? you decide.

[fozzie22]

This is a copy of a post from the Official SWG forums. Not sure if this is the right spot to post but I'm sure most community members plus Mods won't mind as there are a TON of us coming to D&L due to SOE's royal screwups!!!I'm posting it here for all the SWG exiles' enjoyment. It's being deleted from all threads over there:

 

(Begin message)

 

 

I don't expect you to take my word on this but I will share with you what I was told by a friend of

mine who works for SOE. I can't give you any more detail like his position, department, etc for

fear of him being identified. They apparently are bound by some air-tight non-disclosure

agreements.

 

Below is what I was told:

 

Apparently, the NGE has really, REALLY stirred things up in Austin. All sorts of fingers are being

pointed among SOE employee's as nobody wants to take the blame. Right now EVERYONE is trying to

distance themselves from being responsible for making ANY decsions on pushing the NGE live. Every

single employee is avoiding any connection to the NGE like the plague. I was told that the Dev's

expected SOME account cancelations when the NGE went live, but my insider said they were willing to

take those vet losses with the hopes of bringing in new subscribers over the holiday sales season.

Also, the devs were counting on most of the threats by vets to quit to not actually go thru with

cancelling. They have admitted, at least internally, that they number of cancels has FAR FAR FAR

exceeded the number they were willing to take. As a result, there is beginning to be some serious

discussion of a pre-NGE rollback. Several dev's are in serious jeopardy of being fired, and many

many many of the support staff etc are polishing up their resume's because SOE has become the

laughing stock of the online gaming community. No longer is it a badge of pride to work for SOE

according to what I was told. Even my friend says he is no longer proud of working for SOE because

of how they have destroyed their reputation.

 

Also, after having to report to LA on the NGE results, specifically the account cancels numbers,

some of the big dogs from LA have flown into Austin for some serious intervention. No details on

what that means yet, but it is known that Smedly and the senior crew at SOE have been behind closed

doors for unusually lengthy meetings and have emerged with scowls on their face. The speculation

is that LA is gearing up to crack down big time. (I would love to have been a fly on the wall in

those meetings)

 

Because of the signifacant loss of subscriptions, customer service has laid off 25% of their

support staff starting the 1st of January with more cuts expected.

 

All in all, the NGE turned out to rock the player base more deeply than what they expected. Talks

are now underway on cutting the game off sometime in the first quarter of 2006. There is

discussion with an outside company that is interested in purchasing the pre-NGE code with the aim

of running a handful (5 tops) of pre-NGE servers, and maintained with a skeleton support staff.

Right now this is apparently looking to be the most realistic result.

 

I will post more info as I hear stuff.

 

Added stuff:

 

Oh, and my insider said the Devs are being intentionally vague on their forum posting and player

communication because they want to keep as many subscribers as possible right now. A memo was

passed down to ALL Dev's by the SOE execs with a list of topics that are completely not to be

discussed or responded to on the forums. It is generally feared by the SOE team that the more info

the player base has, the more of them will quit the game.

 

Also, the game WAS in the pre-development phase on porting to consol (xbox, playstation), but that

those cycles have been 100% stalled at the moment because the future of SWG is so uncertain. But I

was told that if any Dev posted or said that consol talks were never taking place it is a lie

because significant discussions had already been underway with the design teams experienced with

porting PC games to consol systems and that the NGE was partly (not entirely) designed to acomplish

this objective.

[Cercueil]

I see this is making the rounds this evening......fourth site of seen it on.

[fozzie22]

I see this is making the rounds this evening......fourth site of seen it on.

Thats as maybe..is there any truth to it though?

[Cercueil]

who really knows. the truth will be in a few months...at the end of the first quarter.

[fozzie22]

who really knows. the truth will be in a few months...at the end of the first quarter.

Or given lucasarts and SOE's handling of SWG in a fortnight

[Guest DarthMaulUK]

The only thing I dont believe is the part about it going to console. Yes the interface, gameplay etc is easier now and looks ready to port - however, as I have stated before, there is no way on earth Galaxies could be on a console due to the amount of show stopping bugs in the game. Theres just too many.

 

I can understand them expecting vets to leave - they have all stated that before but vets stay and get on with it. However, considering that most vets are Jedi and have two accounts means that the losses must have been great. But it doesnt take a genius to look around the servers and the lack of people on them now.

 

Another rumour is that the contract between SOE and Lucasarts expires in February 2006. Just a rumour. But NGE has become the final nail in Galaxies I think. The game has suffered too many losses and come on, giving Jedi armour is probably one of the dumbest things they will ever do.

 

DMUK

[fozzie22]

Yeah i think the game will end very soon to be honest,a sad state of affairs for all concerned

[JediConsularAD]

But it doesnt take a genius to look around the servers and the lack of people on them now.

DMUK

 

yeah i walked into the mos eisly cantina yesterday and there was 1 entertainer there, pre-nge it was packed!

[TronusNavigon]

This is too much. I cannot believe they would viciously neuter such a beautiful piece of work.

 

You know bugged or not, the concept, the ideas, the world that these coders created was incredible. To have it all go to hell because of a incompetent and catastrophic business model is extremely sad. Anyone who ever developed a beautiful and engaging piece of software or even a piece of art and is forced to watch it get flushed down a sewage clogged toilet knows how painful that can be.

 

I have empathy for the development team.

 

And now the player base has been shattered and the worst thing is, compared to the veterans I'm a relatively new player as I came after the first CU was released. And I heard many complaints being discussed in *drumroll* wall-to-wall packed cantinas filled with battle fatigued and wounded adventurers being healed and inspired by awesome Entertainers and Musicians in a socially productive albiet buggy virtual world.

 

And now, all you hear about is how Mos Eisley and Dantooine have become virtual ghost towns.

 

And so now I must rant with a series of questions?

 

1) Who the hell convinced the devs that utterly obliterating the skillsets and replacing them with "9 iconic professions" would make the game funner? Why didn't they INCORPORATE the skillsets with the"9 iconic professions" which in turn would give them full creative control and manipulation of balancing 9 classes because you could alter how high a certain class could achieve certain skills. Some call them "buffers". Then a vet player won't feel like he wasted hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours of his life.

 

2) Who the hell convinced the devs that utterly obliterating the social gameplay of crafters and entertainers was a good idea? I don't want to name call but that is so completely retarded to even think that you would make those professions funner by getting rid of the ability to heal wounds and provide stims through music and dance and give players an excuse to sit in a cantina, I mean, what are they smoking? Okay, look, here's some quick ideas just thrown out there:

 

You want a fun social crafting game? It's simple. I'm a crafter. I craft, whatever I want, no restrictions. I work hard to get better at it. Ask yourself a question, how can I make the game more fun for a more social / less combat profession? Easy. Crafters must be an essential part of the game which means it must be just as fun to play a crafter as to play a Jedi. This means if I'm Crafter A, and you're Crafter X, and you're selling better stuff at a lower price, I should be able to call a bounty hunter to put hit out on you. Now the crafter must own his arena, his city, his area, planet, whatever. The crafter, everytime he or she logs on, should have a dozen or more people prodding him for new and exciting equipment, food, armor, weapons, paintings, whatever!

 

Same with Entertainer. Who had the bright idea of crippling entertainers!? Players love entertainers. They healed your wounds, they made it so you could go out and fight again. In fact, I always felt like hunting and grinding for hours on end and getting wounds and battle fatigue should have been more severe so that spending time in the cantinas was much more essential. That's arguable but...

 

and 3) You know what Star Warsy is? Bounty Hunters vs. Jedi. Bounty Hunters capturing Smugglers. Light Jedi vs. Dark Jedi. You know when I saw Episode III, there was this guy, Palpatine, who says, "Every single Jedi is now the enemy of the republic".

 

You know for years SWG worked on emulating that Star Wars feel. That is what Star Warsy means. "Look! Five Imperial Purple hair Jedi Wookiees are dueling outside of the Emperor's Retreat" is not Star Warsy, that's a Holiday Special comic book for six year olds.

 

Instead of two types of professions (social, combat) have three:

SOCIAL - Crafters, Entertainers, Medics

COMBAT - Officers, Commandos, Spies

HUNTER/HUNTED - Jedi, Bounty Hunter, Smugglers

 

There. You got something for the social players, something for the PvE players and something for the PvP players. Use that with the "9 iconic professions" while incorporating a buffered skillset using the old style skilltree and you have a fun game for all and less user abandonment... oh what am I talking about...

 

Listen to me, I'm rambling in my rant. Thinking proactively on an entity that was murdered and buried weeks ago.

 

Forgive me. This was once a diamond in the rough. Now it's the rough surrounded by diamonds. In laymen's terms... it sucks.

 

[HUGOMAND]

You're absolutely right Tronus! Couldn't agree more.

[JediConsularAD]

its quite true though tronus, what you have said, i used to be a crafter but went to combat just before nge, and i tried some crafting and thought, what the hell, lvl 1, i mean you cant collect meat or hide without a friend anymore,

[JediConsularAD]

and why are crafters modeled after lando, at what point did he craft anything, never!

[TronusNavigon]

It makes perfect sense JediConsular, Lando crafted deception...

 

...ToOW refunds... NGE surprise... Smedley ... oh nevermind... Heh.

 

But yeah, I fell in love with crafting pre-NGE. I played on Kettemoor which is a heavy RP server so I was starting off as a hunter / crafter and had a lot of fun just selling low level food, drinks, and clothes for any takers.

 

Man, NGE came and it was like a virus or a plague. Just finished everybody. Needless to say, I went Officer and held on to as many of my original crafted items and food as I could. I started up another character on another server as a crafter and I went to Mos Eisley, found a low level crafting quest to make camp kits or something, and when I went to hunt I realized that I will never get better at using pistol. I will never get better at hunting or using traps. I will only level and that is all. It was sad.

 

It reminded me (here comes a way out there analogy) of 28 Days Later, when that zombie is chained up and the head marine says, "He's telling me he'll never bake bread, plant crops, raise livestock. He's telling me he's futureless."

 

Heh, sorry about the way out there analogy. I are sad.

[Trahern Valley]

"...The Devs are being intentionally vague on their forum posting and player

communication because they want to keep as many subscribers as possible right now..."

 

As far as I'm aware, they always have.

 

The last thing that kept me interested in the game was the diversity of the professions. I liked being able to master more than one. I could be a master droid engineer and still put on the armour, go out and kill rebel scum with the rest of the guild. I wouldn't be as good at it, but it was still fun.

 

Post-NGE, I'm frelled. To date I've sold a swoop, a few crates of droid batteries and seeker droids, and I just can't be bothered to make anything else. I switched to smuggler and soon tired of the clickfest.

 

Perhaps SOE was trying to make the first MMOFPS, and if so... actually, I'm not sure they've even succeeded at that.

 

We'll see what comes before my account dies on the 8th of February.