SOE Offers SWG Players Refunds For Obi-Wan 31
In yet another completely unexpected move, Sony Online Entertainment is offering players who purchased the Trials of Obi-Wan expansion for SWG before Nov. 3rd a refund. The recently announced massive overhaul has upset a lot of people. From the Gamespot article: "To appease some of those angered by the reworking of Star Wars Galaxies, Sony Online and LucasArts are offering refunds to anyone with a Galaxies account in good standing who purchased the Trials of Obi-Wan before November 3. Players seeking refunds should send their name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and Station Name to refunds@soe.sony.com ... All requests must be made by December 1, 2005."
Re:The Matrix (Score:1)
Re:The Matrix (Score:1)
Re:The Matrix (Score:1)
I dunno which is funnier. The fact that you admit to being in the closet, or that you came out by telling everyone that cjb909 can't feel anything in his asshole anymore... : p
Re:The Matrix (Score:3, Interesting)
Then SoE bought the game. They all just canceled their subscriptions right there.
They should give refunds in this case (Score:5, Interesting)
I haven't played in a year. I may go in and check out the new version of the game on Test Center, but I can't imagine it's going to be worth buying expansions for.
It would have been a pretty interesting game without the Star Wars license confusing people. Of course then no one would have played it, but Star Wars evokes something this game isn't capable of delivering. They could start over with a Knights of the Old Republic MMO and people would have goten what they wanted from this game.
Re:They should give refunds in this case (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason they can allow for the refunds is the same reason companies offer rebates instead of just lowering the price. Odds are good that even if you want a refund, they will not have to give you your money. Either you will fill something out wrong, you will not include all of the stuff required, or you won't get it to them before the deal expires. Heck, even if they screw it up, it means they don't give you anything.
I have a hard time applauding SOE for this. They knew these changes were coming well before the expansion pack was released. I'd wager the timing of the announcement was intentional, and SOE thought they could pull a fast one on their customers. This is just a quick fix because the public outcry was greater than they anticipated.
Re:They should give refunds in this case (Score:2)
I think since there's only a handful of comments on a geek site, nobody's playing it anyhow. (Unless they're all playing it right now, and so didn't see the story)
Re:They should give refunds in this case (Score:1)
Although my dream of being a Jedi dancer is evidently out the window.
Re:They should give refunds in this case (Score:2)
People like Galaxies because it occurs in the time of the movies. The ships and politics are those that many are familiar with. This attracts movie fans while I think that a KOTOR MMORPG would have a harder time getting the casual Star Wars fan to pony up the bucks.
My demands (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My demands (Score:2)
Funny at best.
Why would you get a refund for the time you already spent playing? You played that time and apparently enjoyed it since you payed money to do so. That or you have a very hard time understanding the results of your actions.
Re:My demands (Score:1)
The CU1 and CU2 are not his doing.
Unexpected, my butt (Score:2, Interesting)
There are two reasons that this was going to happen. First, look at how much bad press Sony has been getting over the DRM spyware. There are a lot of people who are saying that they won't be buying anything from Sony ever again (or for the forseeable future, myself included). There are bound to be some SWG subscribers who are feeling the same way, and the last thing SOE needs is to lose even more SWG subscribers.
The second reason, which ties in with
Re:Unexpected, my butt (Score:1)
Sleazy way to roll out product (Score:2)
I don't think the NGE affects the Obi-Wan expansion all that much other than the massive changes seen game-wide. But it was
What Rude Jerks! (Score:2)
Very poor customer service. THIS is why Galaxies sucks so hard these days...it's the people at the top of the chain.
Re:What Rude Jerks! (Score:1)
Defending SWG, because deep down it tried. (Score:5, Interesting)
First, how SWG played a couple of months ago when I left.
You would select a race/sex and choose your appearance. This cannot be compared to say Everquest 2 a game I play nowadays. You could customize far more and for instance make flat chested female or a fat wookie. Compare this to EQ2 were you can only change the face a little bit. Even more important perhaps is that you can change your appearance in SWG in game so you could change your hairstyle and makeup to fit you latest outfit.
You would then be walked through the basics of the game before being dropped in the starters area. This was changed to Mos Eisly for everyone at one point and you would now also get a droid who would give you starter missions. You could start killing stuff right away and if you fought with your hands you would get melee xp, for ranged ranged xp. You could visit any trainer and use the XP to improve your capabilites in that field. Visit a medic trainer for instance and any healing you did would allow you to become a better medic.
Each proffesions existed of a base box (medic, melee, ranged, scout, etc) 4x4 grid of specialistation wich each specilisation consisting of four boxes wich you had to get in sequence and a final master box. Each box cost a certain amount of job points of wich you had a finite amount.
Advanced jobs could be learned once you had the required numbed of base specialistions. So for instance combat medic required some in marksman and some in medic, beast handler needed some of scout and some other I forgot. This in theory allowed you to truly create your own character. In theory, in practice the job skill cost was very expensive on say proffesions like crafters. It cost so many job skill points to become a master chef for instance that you could barely afford any combat skills. Since the swg universe needed a lot of specialised crafters, entertainers and doctors and it allowed only 1 character per server SWG always depended heavily on those people that were prepared to play with a non-combat optomized character.
This is important because MMO's are closer to diablo then say D&D PnP.
So while a combat specced who just been running some insane mission on dathomir needs an entertainer to heal his mind, that entertainer could not put a dent in a naff and spends his entire time online just standing around in a cantina on coronet spamming special moves and begging for tips.
Luckily SWG had one thing that forced XP grinding would be combat specialist to also be entertainers. The hologrind.
The only way to become a jedi was to unlock your holo and the way to do that was master a preset number of jobs. So there was a constant stream of players mastering entertainers, medics, doctors and crafters. While it did hurt those few players that wanted to be entertainers, medics, doctors or crafters it also meant there was a steady supply of fresh blood. Rather then what you see in most MMO's where everyone is at the highest level with newby areas totally deserted.
SWG gameplay was always open-ended sandbox model rather then a story led game. Compared even with EQ2 it had far more Elite style missions, go kill X of Y and come back. Loot weapons were rare and crafting therefore important. EQ2 you can exist, in fact new player have to because of prices, on your loot. SWG your equipment was made by other players.
The problem SWG has had that plagues every MMO game that want sto be more then a hack and slash is that players will happily shoot themselves in the foot. MMO players are FPS players who switch on godmode and then complain that the game offers no challenge.
Why oh why did we spend all our time running naff missions (money and XP grind wich every swg player will regonize) when we could have had far more fun running away from nasties on endor? I remember one evening when with a couple of friendly players we just went exploring on endor. Just visiting nice locations, grahpics turned up and taking snapshots. We were having a lot of fun and doing a lot of
Re:Defending SWG, because deep down it tried. (Score:1)
Re:Defending SWG, because deep down it tried. (Score:2)
Re:Defending SWG, because deep down it tried. (Score:2)
A game you might want to look into, and it sounds like it would be right up your ally, is Eve. Free demo, yadda yadda yadda. I found it too complicated to me to be involved with (I dislike not being able to read a manual on how to play a game given my limited time), but I think it has just what you are looking for - and it has almost no grind.
Re:Defending SWG, because deep down it tried. (Score:2)
Re:Defending SWG, because deep down it tried. (Score:2)
Wait, how is that a good thing?
Are you really considering staying with this game? (Score:1)
As a recovering Star Wars fan, you need to do what I did. Recognize that SWG is a pile of crap, Lucas got lucky on Ep IV, and
The end is near... (Score:2, Funny)
They are in trouble.... (Score:1)
They have 2 good things in the last week to keep players:
1) Everybody will be getting a 2nd character slot (still not enough IMHO).
2) The ToOW refund.
These 2 things are not enough to keep me around though. I am sick of SOE's treatment of customers.