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Jonah Falcon
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
113 Posts |
 Posted - 12/20/2005 : 2:58:48 PM
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Here's some good readin' :
[url]http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/16/tech/gamecore/main1133791.shtml?CMP=ILC-SearchStories[/url] |
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Representing Labor
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
62 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2005 : 6:52:07 PM
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I'm sure there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people who complained about the original Galaxies experience. Sony, for some strange reason, listened to their complaints and spent millions of dollars developing an improved gaming experience, only to have it blow up in their faces.
As much as I feel bad for gamers who spent hundreds of dollars for a gaming experience that no longer exists, I'm not going to fault Sony for trying to improve its product. Sony, and companies like Sony, get dozens of petitions and hundreds of e-mails a day (most of them unreasonable and/or contradictory) about their products. They can only do so much to appease their customers. Eventually they have to make a decision and draw a line, and that's often with what's most profitable and not always the best.
My recommendation is simple: if a company is doing something right, send them an e-mail, a letter, call them up and thank them. Tell them you appreciate their product because, whether you know it or not, the vast majority of people who contact the company are complaining about the product and demanding change. I'm not saying positive feedback in the early years would have prevented Sony from changing Galaxies, but it certainly would have influenced the changes that were made. |
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UnknownSubject
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Australia
212 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2005 : 7:46:47 PM
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It will be interesting to see if subscriber numbers change as a result of the New Game Enhancement. Personally, I think it is such a big change that people are going to be offended by it and quit for other games (CoH I hope, but WoW is more likely).
I don't begrudge Sony for trying to improve their product; I begrudge them for the way they went about it. Realistically, they should have eased it in, ran alternate servers with the different rule sets, that kind of thing. Give people the choice to see what they prefer, rather than force it on them.
Spandex Cinema
http://sc.thebeholder.org
Latest Review - December is Bibleman-o-rama Month thanks to Heckler King! |
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dconner
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2005 : 09:02:32 AM
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I played SWG from the Beta up to a couple months before the "space" expansion, and really enjoyed it for the most part, playing a Tailor/Scout/Pistoleer. I doubt there's anything in the new version for me.
I thought the game's initial design was really innovative, but compromised. Once the game went live, it seemed like they were always trying to do stuff to appease hardcore MMORPGers who want every MMORPG to be exactly like EverQuest, but every time they did that, they compromised the game's fundamental design principles.
I can see some of the criticisms, that it wasn't "Star Warsy" enough, that it was more "SimBeru" than high adventure... but I actually kinda liked that. In a game with thousands of players, it made sense to me that not every one of them is a Big Damn Hero all the time. (Though City of Heroes managed to actually pull that off - you *do* feel like a Big Damn Hero all the time, and somehow it works, even though every other player's a Big Damn Hero too.)
One thing I wonder about MMORPGs in general is how many games actually bring in new players, and how many are basically cannibalizing, shuffling around the existing hardcore MMORPG player base. |
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Sandy Petersen
Archdeacon of Jabootu
USA
13 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2005 : 3:45:20 PM
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Speaking as someone who actually works in the game industry (google me to see what I've done), I will say that games with long-term fans, such as RTS or MMORPG are extremely challenging to change. Even the most minor alteration draws reams of hostile postings and rants about the villainous money-grubbing retards who killed my GAME!! For that matter, even NOT making a change can draw hostile postings ("Dwarf Shamans too strong - fix it NOW!"). I give Sony credit for having the cajongas to make big changes in an established MMORPG. Unsurprisingly such a change is both dangerous and controversial.
That said, for me Star Wars Galaxies died only minutes after I booted it up. One of the first things I saw was a Wookie running backwards through the town, shooting desperately at a platter-sized bug chasing him. *sigh*
If I load up a game named "Star Wars" and I'm not battling Darth Vader with my light saber on the deck of the Millenium Falcon within a half hour, I'm gone. |
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Matrixprime
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
69 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2006 : 06:28:54 AM
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To start, I'll say I never played SWG, but I was a victim of Verants first screwjob, EQ 1.
The problem with SWG had more to do with the scope of the changes. Reducing the amount of options to about 1/4th with a PATCH is kind of extreme, as is negating most of the usefullness of a patch that they requested fans pay for (according to either this article or another I read - they eliminated animal trainer, and the last pay to download expansion came out just a few days before, and expanded that option while doing little else. They also turned the game into a more 'twitch' game rather than RPG based.
While Sandy is very, very right - though I'd call the unwashed hordes screaming for blood the 'retards' - as its a fact of gaming life that a MMORPG changes over time. All the testing in the world can't add up to what happens when a system goes live; its very difficult to simulate several dozen varieties, but when there are 1000's of different configurations for computer hardware and software, its a problem. And with a large fanbase, its impossible to ever implement even a minor change that won't affect someone's gameplay.
Verant, though, has a history of saying screw off to customers, and making changes that render the game unplayable to their loyal users (who are, after all, paying their salary) without warning, and without a care.
I will give you a personal example: For 2 years I played EQ. My computer at the time was more than sufficient to run it by a margin. When Verant announced EQ2 and that it was going to require a better computer than what I they publicly told people that EQ1 would stay unchanged for those who couldn't run 2.
Then, a month or so later, they announced that in a month a mandatory patch was going to roll out for EQ1. It would require a higher version of directx (no problem for me, but now Win95 users couldn't play EQ anymore), increased the Graphics card requirement from 16MB to 64 (I had 32), needed at least a 1Ghz processor (I had 800 Mhz)....well you have the idea. So after 2yrs of playing several characters, I was told that in a month I had to pay a decent chunk of change to upgrade my computer, or my money wasn't good enough. When people screamed, they conceded that a sizable chunk of their fanbase would need new computers, but they offered two consolations:1) that you need to get a new computer eventually, and 2)if you went into the panel and disabled every graphical option (including as memory serves editing actual files, not just using graphic options), you SHOULD be able to play it with mild difficulty.
After that, I swore that I would never use another Verant product again.
This seems the same way; publicly they told the fans one thing, then sprung a huge change on their fanbase. As one article put it (after reading your link I googled since I don't play) they already have a simplified, twitch game - Battlefront.
There were a lot of examples of Verant being jerks to their clients. EQ was always crashing, well into going live, and they had a chatroom for tech support if it happened.
Once I went in there because my server crashed, and another player was explaining that there was something on EQ's end. The Verant employee kept insisting that 'its your problem, you call your phone company'. The player said 'I did, and they said that the problems trace back to a Texas hub that is one of the first internet hubs and failing. They said the signal goes to that fine, and from the hub it goes to you, so its Verant's responsibility to report it (or move to another hub). The employee started insulting people and locked out the ability to chat.
Another time, hundreds of people were in the tech forum because all of a sudden (after a patch if mem serves) no one could get in. When people indicated it was probably the patch, since no one had problems before hand, the Verant moderator said 'There's several thousand of you reporting this error, but we have a much larger number logged in to the servers, so its not our concern' (then logged out of the chatroom).
FUN FACT: Verant had such a negative reputation that according to an article I read (when Lucasarts was working on SWG), Lucasarts were going to turn to Verant because they had much of the architecture they wanted set up, but after visiting with Verant they had serious issues with how Verant treated their customers, and were close to going elsewhere until Verant promised to clean up their act.
Bah Weep Granna Weep Ninny Bahn - Universal Greeting
Est Solarus Oth Mithas - Solamnic Knight Pledge
And now its me too:
http://matrixprime.blogspot.com |
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Matrixprime
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
69 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2006 : 06:41:26 AM
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real quick addition:
original requirements for EQ were:
PII 266
600MB HD Space
128 MB Ram
8 MB video card
dial up or cable modem
Win95 and up
I had, at the time,
PIII 800Mhz,
4GB HD,
128 or 256 MB ram,
and a 32 MB graphics card
Win 98SE
dialup
As memory serves, the patch update was around:
PIII 1Ghz
256MB Ram
64MB Graphics Card
minimum of win98
cable modem strongly, strongly (as in you really shouldnt use dialup) preferred
To put in perspective, I play World of Warcraft, which ran smooth as silk on a dialup, despite being 2ghz bigger and needing a much more intensive rig (which I now own).
If anyone else plays WoW, I'm on Bloodhoof and Suramar servers
Bah Weep Granna Weep Ninny Bahn - Universal Greeting
Est Solarus Oth Mithas - Solamnic Knight Pledge
And now its me too:
http://matrixprime.blogspot.com |
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Jonah Falcon
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
113 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2006 : 08:51:15 AM
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I think Galaxies was sort of like The Sims for Star Wars: alternate ID in a Star Wars setting. Some people were happy to do nothing but provide services for others. |
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Meagen
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
Poland
93 Posts |
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