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Washington Post on Star Wars Galaxies Changes

Posted by Zonk on Thu Feb 02, 2006 10:39 AM
from the when-the-major-media-covers-your-patch dept.
Role Playing (Games)
spartan7891 writes "The Washington Post, by way of MSNBC, is running a story on how fans are outraged at the newest changes made to Star Wars Galaxies. As one player states, 'The game for me probably will be a lost love. Sort of like seeing your spouse with Alzheimer's. Outwardly, everything appears the same as it always has, but you know that beneath the surface, things will never be the same.' There's even rumors of LucasArts being so angry about the changes that they may cancel SOE's contract." Yeah ... if a major newspaper covers what you did in a patch, you probably did something wrong.
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  • Ummm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Otter (3800) on Thursday February 02 2006, @10:44AM (#14626195) Journal
    As one player states, 'The game for me probably will be a lost love. Sort of like seeing your spouse with Alzheimer's. Outwardly, everything appears the same as it always has, but you know that beneath the surface, things will never be the same.'

    I'd say that if this causes "one player" to spend a little more time in reality and acquire (if only by gamer standards) a bit of perspective, they've done him a huge favor.

  • ILM, Lucas Arts = Downtrodden farm boy launched into space trying to change the universal views of perception. SOE = Stoic Empire that squashes all rebellious intent and free thinking schemes with an iron fist. Someone please tell me who the Cast and Characters are I know we can do a spoof for George

  • I'll do the obligatory (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quiet_Desperation (858215) on Thursday February 02 2006, @10:48AM (#14626246)
    Did anyone feel a disturbance in the Force? As if thousands of players cried out in pain as their character's jobs were deleted?

  • Vandalism but tis not al bad to give up a game (Score:5, Informative)

    by Captain Kirk (148843) on Thursday February 02 2006, @10:56AM (#14626334) Homepage Journal
    I had a master ranger/master swordsman and specialsed in supplying cooks and armorsmiths with meat and hides. IT was great being part of player run economy where you chose your own customers, set your own prices and went off hunting whenever you needed cash.

    Ranger, swordsman, cook and armorsmith were all dropped as part of the dumbing down of the game. Now we ahve something that seems to be be aimed at console players. Still, its given me time to watch TV and read books - two activities I had dropped to make time for SWG.
    • That makes me laugh. You are playing less video games, but that's ok because it lets you get back into TV.

      F U N N Y

      TV watching is highly addictive. If you don't believe me try quitting for a year.

      "I can quit any time I want, I just don't want to"

    • Why on Earth (or any other planet) would someone want to pretend to be A COOK or a DOG TRAINER in a STAR WARS game? Isn't the whole concept of Star Wars a kind of Space Opera, in which archetypal heroes, heroines and villains square off in a battle of Good vs. Evil? What happens when a cook turns to the Dark Side? Runny eggs?

      • Re:Forgive me, but I really want to know: (Score:5, Informative)

        by Karzz1 (306015) on Thursday February 02 2006, @12:25PM (#14627371) Homepage
        I don't know whether or not you are trolling or honestly asking a question so I will assume the latter.

        One of the attractions of SWG before the changes mentioned in the article were made was the complicated crafting system. I knew (know) several disabled players who could not keep up with the fighting aspects of the game but really enjoyed crafting (weaponsmith, armorsmith, architect etc...). This allowed them to be part of a guild, have a social aspect of the game and feel a like part of a community without having to suffer the aggravation of player-killers and such. Also, the article mentioned hair-dresser, which is incorrect. That profession was actually Image Designer and actually served a purpose a long time ago other than to change the appearance of your toon. You used to have secondary stats that you could custom tailor your character with -- in order to change these stats you needed an Image Designer. The combat "upgrade" killed off those stats and one of the uses of Image Designers.

        Another thing to keep in mind, in SWG there are no NPC vendors -- you cant just go buy stuff (weapons/clothes/armor/food/etc...) anywhere, you have to either loot it or buy it from other players. This was one of the draws of the game. And most of the stuff that was "made" by players was of much higher quality than the stuff that you looted. There was a time when chefs (cooks) where invaluable due to the fact that the buffs you got from their foods/drinks could not be gotten elsewhere. Also, there was huge variation in the quality of these products from vendor to vendor. This was due to the fact that the quality of the resources(harvested) and components (player made) had direct effect on teh quality of the end product. This extends itself to all the crafting aspects of the game.

        I could go on and on, but I refrain :). Suffice it to say that most of these aspects of the game have been removed. In fact, that is pretty much what the entire "Next Great Experiment" aka NGE was all about -- how much they could remove from the game without adding anything back and not completely kill the game. I think they underestimated the reaction to the POS they have turned the game into. I dropped 3 (all of my) accounts as a direct result of this latest "upgrade".
        • What's interesting to me is this theme of disabled people being able to enjoy a game that didn't rely on or require at all hair-trigger reflexes. I'm really curious to know how much of this is hype and how many disabled people were really a part of this.

          -stormin
          • I cannot comment for all of SWG of course, however in our small guild (~40 members pre-NGE) we had 3 disabled crafters that all left as soon as NGE hit. These were(are) great players, not in their combat prowess, but in their generosity and devotion to our community. These people were the "heart" of our little town (S'omik Mood on Lok, Kauri server).
        • First, thank you for taking the time to reply. Mine was indeed a serious question. A question I still have, by the way.

          I understand all the concepts of user controlled economies, desire to play but not fight, etc. BUT I still don't know what any of this has to do with STAR WARS. If someone wants to roleplay being a farmer or an "image consultant" why not seek out a more appropriate venue. One of the reasons, and there are many, that I never had much interest in Galaxies, is that from all I read there was li
          • I understand all the concepts of user controlled economies, desire to play but not fight, etc. BUT I still don't know what any of this has to do with STAR WARS. If someone wants to roleplay being a farmer or an "image consultant" why not seek out a more appropriate venue.

            I speak as an SWG player who has easily spent 90% of my time as a crafter and merchant. There isn't "a more appropriate venue", mostly. SWG has (had) one of the most extensive crafting systems of any MMOG. When the NGE came along I looked a

  • In other news (Score:4, Funny)

    by pcgamez (40751) on Thursday February 02 2006, @10:57AM (#14626341) Homepage
    In other news today thousands of geeks were seen standing outside their parent's houses blinking at the sunglight for the first time in months.

  • It's not Star Wars, it's Planetside 2! (Score:4, Informative)

    by d3ac0n (715594) on Thursday February 02 2006, @10:58AM (#14626352)
    Those of us that play SOE's Planetside know that this is an attempt to create another Planetside-style MMOFPS using the Star Wars franchise as a backdrop. Months before SOE announced changes to Star Wars, Several of the lead developers from Planetside and SOE execs made a public "teaser" at an SOE Convention that their next MMOFPS based off of many of the concepts from Planetside was going to be coming by the end of the year. When the Star Wars Patch came out, those of us in Planetside who had been watching knew what it was.

    Now, I do NOT think this is a bad thing. The reason I play Planetside is because I can't stand the boring level-grind that is EVERY MMORPG out there. When I get online to game, I want to have to work for my victories, not dice roll for them. I say 'Bravo Sony' for having the courage to step out and do something DIFFERENT for once, and to move away form the EQ-WOW-COH-Etc. level grinders that are smothering the MMO market today.

    "The MMOFPS, it's an elegant game style from a more civilized time. Not as crude and random as a dice-roller MMORPG." (with apologies to Obi-Wan)
    • SOE....MMOFPS....MMORPG....EQ-WOW-COH....MMO

      Don't forget to put the cover sheet on your TPS reports BEFORE they go out.

    • I'm a die hard Planetside fan, and I got there after playing SWG and hating it, so I can see where you're coming from. However, SWG had an established base of players that more or less enjoyed the game (everyone who hated it, like me, quit). Once you've got a player base that accepts things the way they are, doing such a drastic change is going to create huge negative publicity. Perhaps the changes were to draw people like me back to SWG, but the fact is that SOE couldn't generate any positive spin out o
      • Oy - I'd like to get back into planetside (I played a lot a couple years back and eventually got to like BR 15). I started playing again with this free month they gave me - along with my old character back with all my xp.

        Trouble is I need to find a really organized outfit. I get tired of running around on my own never accomplishing anything.

        Any chacne you play NC on Emerald (or know someone that does) and have a tight guild with teamspeak required? 'Cause I'd be interested if you do.

        -stormin
    • I can understand them wanting to go in a different direction than the way SWG was, however, to completely change the game around 1-2 years after its release is only going to anger people. By this point, the people that were initially looking to play the kind of game that they are changing in to are already gone. The only people that were still playing were those that had accepted the old system. They are, essentially, trying to turn SWG into SWG2, on the fly. I think that SOE painted themselves into a c
    • I have no interest in SWG - pre or post transition. If I had to pick I'd say I'm slightly more interested in a faster-paced FPS-style game than in the older RPG style game (I love Planetside). But at the same time, I don't think what SOE did was right or good. Even if it becomes a game more like one I'd want to play the fact that SOE is so ready to give the shaft to players that have dedicated years of their lives (laying aside whatever that says about their priorities) not only playing their game but pa
    • If Planetside was that good, they should've left it Planetside and left SWG as SWG.

      Treat your fanbase with respect. Make upgrades incrementally and sanely.

      Here's an example of when another game tried to pull this, and failed -- I hope I've got my history right:

      Nexus [nexustk.com] is a very old game, even claims to be the first MMORPG. It's 2D enough that I wouldn't be surprised. After awhile, the company decided to make a new MMO, and wanted people to start playing it -- I think that was called Shattered Galaxies, but
      • Only someone who has never had to organize and stratagize a team of 40 players to take down all the boses of molten core over a 2 - 3 day period can say that it's all just random dice rolls.

        Nope, I've never had to do that. I've only had to organize and strategize OVER ONE HUNDRED players in an all-out battle for control of an entire Continent! This was just one battle in the course of a single evening's play. The scale of battle in Planetside is simply so far and away greater what you would experien
        • So there really isn't much strategy involved. Just show up with your high level players and click the "Attack" button enough times.

          You'd be right, if you were talking about an MMOPRG game that had one attack button. Is there such a thing?

          But as an example from WoW, when playing my dwarf hunter (normal weapon: gun), when approaching a fight, I first have to make the choice of what trap to put down. Frost, if I think I might alert a mob and need to make a quick exit? Freeze, to trap a single enemy for 10 seco
  • SOE blew it with SWG. The game was complex. It wasn't easy to become the best. There was a lot to know about everything and this is what drew me to it. With all the changes it's become more and more simple and has swerved away from all the reasons I loved it.

    In their attempt to capture a wider player base they alienated the rest of us. The scope of the worlds and how you could build your character was so wide. The freedom to do what you wanted was amazing. And they took that freedom and they kicked i

  • dumbest business move? (Score:5, Informative)

    by malsdavis (542216) * on Thursday February 02 2006, @11:02AM (#14626409)
    I've never played Star Wars Galaxies but the 3 people I know who use to have all cancelled their accounts over the past month. Two said they hated the new changes and the other cancelled it yesturday saying that there just arn't enough "cool" people on the servers anymore.

    I keep getting the feeling that in 3 or so years time this whole event will be features in one of those "top 10 dumbest business moves" articles.

  • Is Sony missing on the MMORPG golden rule? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jugalator (259273) on Thursday February 02 2006, @11:09AM (#14626470) Journal
    If it's "easy to play", and people can easier become Jedi's, and play/meet up with iconic characters, and it's more fast paced, won't SOE risk exchanging a player base of dedicated players with long term goals with unreliable (as for income stream) short-term players looking at the game as an action shooter they're done with after a month or so? I thought the point with MMORPG's was to set up several long term goals and lots of stuff to do, with lots of professions to pick from, lots of quests, lots of opportunities for social interactions, and basically make people grow into the world and make it their home on the Internet. Sounds evil, but I think that's what most MMORPG's strive for, although it doesn't sound like this one does anymore...

    Is Sony missing that the equation is money * time = revenue?

    Could Sony now see effects of a shortly increased popularity, but be worse off than ever in just a year?

    Some companies manage to pull this off quite well, such as Blizzard with Diablo II, but that one's fee-free, as well as an FPS action game like Counterstrike. I think SOE will have quite a large burden to carry to make people want to pay monthly for some action with a reduced depth, professions, and less varying goals to aspire to.
      • Well, the 1-60 game in WoW isn't the bigesst pull. It's the fact that most of the advancement you make actually comes AFTER level 60. If you start on a fairly developed server, it can take one to five months to get level 60 (depending on how much you play). Once you get there, say you're mostly in auction house green items. You can put in another few months getting your class blue set, which makes easily five more levels of difference. Then there's the half-epic quest reward class set that's comming in the

  • Wow (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rscrawford (311046) <rscrawford@@@undavis...edu> on Thursday February 02 2006, @12:34PM (#14627466) Homepage Journal
    Between this and their rootkit ("Oopsie!"), seems that Sony's really batting 1000 lately, doesn't it?

  • LucasArts and the rumored anger about SWG (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stonecutter2 (940299) on Thursday February 02 2006, @12:55PM (#14627730) Homepage Journal
    "There's even rumors of LucasArts being so angry about the changes that they may cancel SOE's contract."

    The formatting of this in italics makes it seem like it's mentioned in the story, which it's not...so that's a bit misleading or confusing.

    If you read the article, in fact, the vice president of development at SOE said, "'It was a tough decision we had to make,' he said. 'We knew we were going to sacrifice some players . . . [but] as a Star Wars license, we should do a lot better than we have been doing.'"

    So, in effect, it seems that SOE was probably lambasted by LucasArts and the NGE was the result. It was likely a joint effort between the two companies to kick start the game again. If LucasArts is still unhappy with it, then it is a situation they were well aware of, and it's doubtful they would suddenly become angry and cancel SOE's contract when they were part of the effort to "save" the game.

    That said, I played this game for 2 years with multiple accounts. It used to be fun, and with the new way of things it just wasn't. Animations before the first overhaul of the game (Combat Upgrade) were fluid and fun to watch, especially the Darth Maul-esque double bladed lightsaber moves. The Combat Upgrade filled the game with flashy particle effects and magical auras everywhere - VERY unlike any Star Wars movie I've seen. That was lame. With the New Game Enhancements they just recently did, now they sped up everything so that characters run around like they're on crystal meth. It looks ridiculous. It was plagued with bugs and only had quests through level 30 out of the 90 levels in combat - that was just a stupid decision. The game needs more content and always has.

    The game also needs a development team that can actually handle the workload required of the game - it's more than apparent that no matter what the configuration of the game, the Dev team isn't up to the task. Even as "cut down" as the game currently is, which it really isn't - many professions just got rolled up into "classes" so no significant work was really saved - the Devs still don't seem to have any significant effort being put toward finally getting this game polished and functioning.

    In the end, the NGE basically achieved the purging of the veteran playerbase who were pissed that nothing good had come out of the potential the game had, and instead it overhauled everything to bring in a new crop of players willing to fork over cash and wait for the potential of the game to be realized. In other words, they have a whole new population of willing subscribers who will take another 2 years to really get mad that they've wasted their time to get nothing significant in return. The question is - will the new players have the staying power of the previous veteran players? Doubtful, in my opinion. They are flash in the pan Episode III-hyped players. The fans who were in it for the long haul have by and far given up by now.

    Eventually this game will be abandoned in droves and it will fall apart. Too bad, because all I wanted was to actually be a musician in the Star Wars universe and entertain folks - and the Devs have no interest apparently in developing that "iconic class" as they call it. In addition, I got sick of playing a Jedi (which launched with the NGE with no armor - frickin' brilliant) which is a melee class in a ranged shoot-em-up game. If they can't get the game to work right with Jedi, what the hell kind of Star Wars game is it, anyways? And who the hell calls themselves a Dev for a Star Wars game when they can't even make Jedi fit into the game properly?

  • EVE-Online Doesn't Suck (Score:4, Informative)

    by TinyManCan (580322) on Thursday February 02 2006, @01:40PM (#14628256) Homepage
    I've moved from playing SWG to Eve Online. It is a bit of a different experience, but I like it.

    Much (but not all) of the economy is player controlled, and there are a nearly infinte amount of ways to play the game.

    My favorite part though is that leveling is not a grind. Each skill takes a certain amout of time to train, and keeps training even when you log out. So as long as you can log in for a few minutes a week, you can keep advancing your character, just as fast as anyone else.

    I've also noticed that the people I play with and against don't seem to act like the WOW-Tards I've seen on other MMORPGs

  • I wonder why they did it this way? Why not set up another virtual world with the newly designed game on it, and leave the original intact as a separate game? Why did it have to be one or the other? I would think the cost of a few servers and maintaining them would be less than the revenue generated by having two versions of the game.
    • yeah, cause gamers are famous for their ability to place things in the proper perspective.
    • Thought the same thing. Not only is this a harsh blow to SOE, but its a harsh blow to the casual gamer who will be associated with someone who'd make such a moronic statement like that.

    • Re:Like a spouse with alzheimers? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Yst (936212) on Thursday February 02 2006, @10:59AM (#14626370)
      Yeah, because losing a video game is like seeing your loved one destroyed by a horrible disease...

      And why shouldn't it be? A comparison between the character of one experience and the character of another does not necessitate that the scale of those experiences is being equated.

      Much wailing and gnashing of teeth is wasted by individuals who feel the need to pretend that any quality characterised by analogy is necessarily a quantity equated by analogy as well. No such necessity exists.

      And maybe it's not artful to use analogies which differ in the scale of perceived wrongs which they compare, because the wilfully ignorant will inevitably misinterpret their meaning. But I like to think that writing should serve the genuinely interested reader first, rather than those who actively seek to misinterpret and misunderstand in pursuit of scandal.
      • I had an English prof who harped on this thing a lot. He liked lampooning people who think like the grandparent by telling a short story. Character A has some minor issue, and Character B suggests that he just ignore it. "Like water off a duck's back." Character A replies, "It's nothing like that! Ducks have bills! I don't!"
    • It's not so much what they're actually losing, its sheer, inexplicable frustration that a service-based company would do something that is opposed by the large majority of it's customers. "Shooting yourself in the foot" and "biting the hand that feeds you" are apt analogies to the general WTF!?!? consensus seen at the moment.

      From my experience, admin on MMORPGS don't really care, for one of four reasons:

      1) They have a character in the game, and want to make it more fun for them
      2) General fear of havi
      • Statesman, the lead dev for City of Heroes, once said something to the effect of "some players leave, other players join," when people made angry noises about quitting over changes he was making to CoH. And that seems to be the truth, at least for CoH; there was recently a huge sweeping change to the way power enhancements were calculated that severely lessened the effect of every power in the game--but people still continue playing it. It will be interesting to see if enough people actually quit and not e
    • Software, especially software environments aren't just corporate owned property. People fall in love with things and ways of doing things. While ethically and morally there is no equivalence between someone dying of disease and a product being changed/discontinued the effects though of peoples live for software can be dramatic.

      Remember free software, the GPL and by association Linux and much of what we think of as modern computing came about because one socially challenged bearded hacker guy was rather up

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