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Originally posted HERE
Originally Quoted From Another Smedley Apology HERE:
That other lesson is the infamous "New Game Experience" the team put into Star Wars Galaxies in 2005. On that, he was completely frank.
"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."
The NGE completely altered Star Wars Galaxies, a game that had launched in cooperation with Lucas Arts over two years before. Classes disappeared and the game fundamentally changed in almost every way. It came as no surprise to observers that this change was massively unpopular among the player base.
And what was the mistake SOE made that Smedley is sorry for?
"[The mistake was] to not just think we know the right direction without bringing the fans into the mix," he explained. "We made the cardinal sin of not listening, but assuming and we were wrong."
He went on to point out that after two years, the game is once again stable and growing. They continue to update the game with new content and those fans, old and new, who enjoy the current incarnation of the game are being listened to. The old game won't come back - to change now would be as unfair as the first time they did it - but he believes SWG still has a solid future.
also i lost what i typed out originally and am currently trying it all out again before this post gets pushed out and lost in the forums...so far heres what i got:
first off i have to defend SOE. (yeah i know its not something i do very often) SOE has listened to its community recently though I'm not 100% sold on it since its still not the direction the majority wants to go. but the devs are trying more now than they have in the past to bring us content that we have requested. ill give them that
the original release 4 1/2 years ago was a completely different game that what we currently play. most will not understand what I'm going to talk about here while others will know exactly and still others will have read similar posts and threads on these topics.
i was stationed in North Carolina when the game was released for public beta then shortly there after went to South Korea and SWG was released on June 26 2003 i was deployed till i was stationed in Las Vegas in the beginning for 2004 i played mostly FPS with a little bit of SWG. when the Combat Upgrade (CU) was released (27 April 2005) i was in it for a very short time till i had work and personal issues take me away. New Game Enhancement (NGE) was released on November 15 2005. i came back at in Oct 2005 and did not like what i saw when November rolled up on us quick. later in 2006 i took a 7 month break for LOTRO which was in closed, open beta, and released then through its first few patches till around the end of May/June 2007 time frame. just to give the readers and devs a little background on what Ive seen and where I'm coming from. (i know i haven't played 100% straight through but those players are very hard to find now)
OK now on to what i lost when i hit the **edit** back button:
the original game took a huge chance and broke away from what (at the time) current MMORPGs were doing (and still doing now). it was completely skill based. no levels. the game style was based on 34 professions and their own skills which could be combined in countless different templates. no 2 characters on any server was exactly the same. a very unique way to explore the MMORPG game type which i must admit was very complex yet very refined and entertaining. once you figured out your game play style you could adjust your template to fit you. now everyone is going the way of the cookie cutter. sure the experience trees have added some options but nothing like 34 professions and combinations of trees did in the original release
also in the old system we could train each other on certain skills. or we could go kill creatures to improve our skills. this helped the community as a whole. players helped each other out more and interacted with each other more so than they do now. a very neat idea that was later scrapped for some odd reason. ah yes NGE hit and took it away but left the "Train" option on there...lol...its finally gone now but took them long enough to fix that bug
throughout the past years/patches and with the introduction of CU and NGE the original game play has changed for the worse from a community perspective. ill start off with general issues/items of change/additions cause going in each game play change would make an already long post even longer:
things that are gone from the SWG universe:
i remember when roaming around Endor i came across a probe droid which i killed cause it was annoying to be stopped and searched for illegal spice. upon killing it within a couple of minutes i was approached by 4-5 stormtroopers who came in to "investigate" why their probe droid was destroyed. something that i haven't seen in the game since pre-CU.
i remember the way the old GUI was set up. it was more refined then the current one we are fighting with now.
10 minute waits on the starport shuttles. yeah very boring wait but players interacted with each other more back then. duels were common and entertaining to watch. nothing in the game actually encourages group play anymore like some of the aspects of the original game
gone are the original animations, weapon sounds, creature specific actions and personalities. every creature is the same now. not just in appearance but their actions and responses. these changes made for very boring game play and no immersion into the SW universe. those of us that know about them use GUI, sound effect, music, animation, and texture mods that use the current state of the game under an original interpretation. the game looks and sounds like the original release with these mods.
Examples:
Original NGE GUI minus all mods:
NGE after mods applied:
if i could get my fraps to agree i would post a mini-vid of the sound effects, music, and animations modifications
gone are the imperial inspection squads that would enter a city (static or player) that would enter with an AT-ST and inspect players for illegal goods and if found you would be attacked and a TEF would be applied. you would be open for attack from the opposite faction players
Jedi is a huge topic that gets beat up more than a dead horse. for good reason too. originally Jedi was an unlock-able profession. due to cannon restrictions there is good reason for this. Order 66 killed off most of the Jedi. those that did survive are in hiding. if you were lucky enough to get it you had to be very carefully of your actions around imperials. you would get a bounty placed on your head and slapped with a TEF. perma death kept their numbers down. making Jedi a starting profession was the first huge mistake SOE Devs made in a long list of others. the original system worked and should not have been adjusted in any way other than bug fixes
speaking of bug fixes. can you count how many bugs are still around since release? i don't have enough fingers and toes to count them all.
when attacked by NPCs if you happen to get unlucky and get incapacitated they would walk up to you and Death Blow you. when you died there was a "punishment" associated with it. armor and weapons and anything else in our inventory would decay. this in-turn kept our crafters busy making new weapons and armor among other items in our inventory. prices were much much lower on the vendors as well. (sure we are over 4 years into this game and most of us have huge bank accounts now but back then we didn't since we always were purchasing equipment to refresh/restock) the NPCs only DB you now if you happen to still have a DOT on them and they do not walk back to you. they just do it from a huge range even if they are melee - most players that do not have an ITV will opt to take a "lava bath" or find some nearby NPC to kill them for quick transport with out any consequence. this is totally unacceptable in an MMORPG
CU and NGE has changed the way AI act. also the combat time has shorten considerably. the only fights that last more than 30 seconds or a minute are Jedi fights with similar builds. the sounds, animations, and this combat timer has made the game boring. AI has been easier then hard, then easy then super hard. i know the devs are trying to balance the AI for us but when they "balance" a profession it also throws a wrench into the AI balance. nothing is skill based now. it all comes down to what mods you have, which buffs you have, and who can out last their opponent in PVP. for PvE its changed too many times to get a good comment but right now we can basically go through everything solo except for a few silver bars (well those that still get bugged are easy).
group experience used to be great. it was easy to find a group to knock out some quests. now no-one bothers with it for the most part. this is due to the huge group experience hit we take. the devs are looking to give us more experience while in a group but this has been requested ever since they changed it. for the most part the only time we group up is after we hit level 90 to do quests on mustafar, in space to assist others with their pilot squadrons, and in PVP battles.
speaking of space, notice space hasn't been touched very much till this year with the loot drops and their stats. (oh and the pre-nerf parts a while ago) there is good reason for this as well. space is perfect the way it is. theres quite a few of us pilots that are worried about the upcoming chap 8 additions/changes. this hasn't been a priority for the devs since very few of the players know how well space actually is/was. nerfing parts hurt us more than it helped. those with the pre-nerf parts have an advantage that others don't have the option to ever get. the addition of the JSF, Bell, and ARC hurt the community as well. they are unbalanced compared to the original ships. they are adding another ship that will further the unbalanced issues in space with Chap 8. the last thing space needs is a New Space Enhancement (NSE) that will screw our pilots like the ground changes did. i know a lot of players that hated the NGE so much that when they found space was basically unchanged they became pilots and have stuck with the game.
By now we've all heard about the work on the Esomething. SOE made a big mistake releasing the code of the game for open source. as expected a few groups of players that missed the original game have been working on bringing back their original beloved game. what gets me is that since the Esomething went public and announced their intentions inside the SOE/SWG Dev clans a shakedown occurred. SOE top brass noticed what this could mean and directed their Devs to react. we had polls before chap 5 asking the SWG community what we wanted and how we felt about our game and its direction at the time. SOE and its Devs reacted with the experience trees we see today. the graphic updates, AI changes, and content additions just to name a few. in a way you can say the announcement and work on the Esomething has pushed SOE and its Devs to look at the community for the games future. this is about time and is needed. this isn't the first time Smedley has apologized to the SWG community on how the game was developed and handled by its devs and upper management. you can thank Esomething for what we have gotten so far and where the game is heading in the future. SOE took a chance with the original SWG release with the skill base system. as you can see SOE has noticed the huge attention Esomething has gotten and tried to give us that feel back with the recent additions this past year. but their thinking if flawed. you cant change a game 2 times just to try and revert back with its current state. you'd be surprised at how many Devs are looking at the Esomething and using some of those old ideas now (some with new twists)
if they would like to just bare with its community and give us what we've been requesting since CU and NGE this would be a huge step forward. I'm talking about 1 (just one, similar to test center) server that has the original game hosted. call it Test Center Alpha as a hallmark to the original games release. let it run for a year and gage the community reaction. we all know as soon as something like this goes live it would be the talk of the community for 2-3 months. but running it for a year would get a great evaluation of how the current game compares to the original game. i think SOE would be surprised by its results. SOE released the code to open source and they still have it. it would not take much time, effort and financial resources to put up another server. in the long run it would pay for itself, maybe within a couple of months with vets returning
servers have been an increasing issue with SWG. PC specs have changed throughout the years since the original release. we've all had to deal with the servers crashing and server induced lag from PVP skirmishes. notice i did not say MASS PVP. mass pvp is long gone. when more than 40 players are in the same area it starts to affect the entire server. in the past there could be double TRIPLE the numbers and the servers performed better then they do in their current state. this is a coding issue that CU and NGE has brought in but also a server hardware issue. with PCs many times more powerful now than in the original game these work horses are struggling in SWG when the graphics are maxed out.I'm gonna stop here.
i think i covered what i originally deleted with a few other additions. this is not one of those "i want original servers back" thread. this is a thread about the SWG past and future and how it relates to the current state of the game. SOE and Dev direction/input along with community input.
with chap 7 coming up and the much dreaded/anticipated chap 8 space revamp SOE needs to look for community support and direction. its been a long time since we've had polls from SOE or the Devs on what the community desires from their beloved Star Wars Universe
im being told to edit this...gimme a few prior to mod edits/deletions - EDITS COMPLETED - WILL THAT WORK????
Originally Posted By An Unnamed MOD:
Please remove the paragraph regarding Esomething, as it is against the forum rules to post in regards to this.
Thanks!
My Reply:
i know its against the rules...i tossed it up since it shows SOEs reaction against it...i do not support it but wanted to show how SOE has done some interesting things for the community since Esomething was announced - SOE caused this all on their own by releasing their code to the public
My 2nd Reply:
i cant delete that paragraph since it deals so much with Esomething and soe's reaction - the edits i made, will they work or would i have to make it more general???
im trying to work with the forum rules and its mods rather than against them
i will delete the PM quotes as needed or when i get a reply