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Star Wars Galaxies Users Restless Over Rebalancing
Zonk writes "Last Thursday 'Thunderheart', the Community Manager on PC MMO Star Wars Galaxies' forums, dropped a bomb: the long awaited patch rebalancing combat within the game has been pushed off until after the Jump to Lightspeed expansion [which just announced 13 of its 15 spaceships] launches. Given that the JtL expansion is not due until this fall, this puts the combat rebalance somewhere around the beginning of next year. The playerbase has... not taken this well. The original thread on the official forums was locked at 64 pages - it was then picked up again in a thread already surpassing 50 pages. The players are rightly outraged, and the reaction has prompted a response from the Sony Online chain of command. It will be interesting to see how this turns out." Update: 07/21 15:52 GMT by S : There's an interview with producer Haden Blackman over at Game Informer which discusses the issue in more detail.
The number one reason SWG fans are pissed is that SOE is charging them 15$ a month telling them that it is going into the maintaining of servers and creation of new free content. but instead SOE has taken that money to develop and expansion that they will then charge full price to their current base.
I don't play Galaxies, although I do play another MMORPG (FFXI) and take an interest in the genre. As such, my rant here isn't going to be specifically about Galaxies, so feel free to stop reading and/or mod me off-topic now.
This is the perfect example of how so many developers shoot themselves in the foot and harm both their own chances of success and the reputation of the industry. This is particularly true of the PC gaming industry, which has seen its credibility battered by behaviour like this over the last few years. I'm talking about this habit that developers have of whipping up interest in a product, claiming it's going to be here "very soon" and then not delivering.
The most spectacular example of this recently has been Half-Life 2. I forget when exactly Valve went public with what they'd been doing on Half-Life 2... I think it was some time around March 2003. When they unveiled it, there was a predictable and deserved *thud* sound as jaws hit the floor. More impressively still, at a time when Doom 3 was still stuck in the mystic lands of "when it's done", Valve announced that Half-Life 2 would be appearing in September that year... just a few months away. I remember speaking to some friends about this at the time; the consensus was that Valve had just compltely undermined ID, that ID were going to be a laughing stock and that Doom 3 wouldn't be looking so special by the time of its release, as Valve would have comprehensively stolen their thunder.
Of course, we all know how the story developed. The September 30th release date for HL2 came and went, with no release in sight. Sure, Valve got unlucky (or stupid, depending on how you see it) over the source-code leak, but from what I've heard (I've not seen the leaked source-code, nor do I particularly want to), the game wasn't even close to being ready for release last September. Indeed, there's a growing feeling that the revised release date of *this* September is now looking unlikely. The result? Valve lost a lot of credibility. Their main rivals, ID, gained a lot of ground back, because people felt that while "when it's done" release dates are a bad idea, ID had at least been consistent about it and, of course, it's now gone gold. Much of Half-Life 2's thunder was stolen by Far Cry, which delivered much of what HL2 promised, with far less hype. The overall loser? The PC gaming industry in general, which has further cemented its reputation with its customers as unprofessional, unfocussed and unable to deliver.
The Galaxies fiasco doesn't sound as though it's on quite the same scale. At least the game is out in this case, although it's hardly had the best of press during its first year. However, with a MMORPG, customer trust is an absolutely vital issue. With a standalone game, it helps but it's not vital, as you can generally persuade the punters to "take a chance" on an unknown title, if it looks tempting enough. But the MMORPG model requires both getting customers and keeping them; if you lose their trust, your business is going to decline pretty quickly.
Everyone(or a favourable majority) needs to band together and cancel their accounts for a period of one month. Then if the actions on SOE's part are still not satisfactory after this period, extend it to two months and so on.
If SOE counters by threatining the future of the game, then so what; it's just a game. Move on. The players need to be in control, after all it is your money.
If you simply roll-over and wait, nothing will change. Remember your sub is your vote, not some online petition or forum whine. Use it.
I disagree, the Star Wars brand is a huge drawcard. How else would you get people to play a 'dancer' class?
I've always thought that the Star Wars universe has helped to make average games really good (Rebellion), and good games really awesome (The Jedi Knight Series).
If this wasn't based on Star Wars and was based on some random universe this MMORPG would be long dead.
Star Wars was seen as the license that couldn't fail to bring in 1 million players, and they are probably down to the low 200k or even high 100+K players now. After a year of playing, becoming leader of a major guild, going to the Fanfest to meet with the Devs, I can safely say that SWG is apparently a hugely understaffed, poorly managed MMORPG. The response time from the Devs for serious gameplay issues is astounding and there are numerous bugs that date from launch that are still making life crappy for everyone. The absolute inability for SOE to hire enough coders to do the job that they have obligated themselves to do by releasing a MMORPG this complex is shocking. There seems to be a total disconnect between their perceptions of how the game should work and how it is currently working. At fanfest, one of the Devs would repeatedly tell players who felt that there was an imbalance in the game mechanics that favoured/disfavoured one profession over another "You are not playing right" or "You have a role to fill, that's what you do." He seemed totally agog that players might not do exactly as the Devs intended them to do. A very naive statement, if you ask me. Many, many of us are simply waiting for WOW at this point. Hopefully future MMO developers can learn from SOE's mistake.
I've been playing SWG for a while now. I play an entertainer, and it's been fun from the first day. It continues to be fun. No, I'm not rich. No, I'm not powerful. But I do have fun. And my character has a wide enough range of talents that if it ever does get boring, I can do something else and it will still be fun.
Here's an idea: instead of seeing how many mobs you can beat up, or how many Rebels you can kill, why not do something different with your playing time? Go to a cantina and actually interact with the entertainers rather than wiping off your battle fatigue and mind wounds in silence and then stalking away. Go to an image designer and change your look rather than sit in stony silence for ten minutes while your stats migrate. Go collect badges. There's a ton of stuff to do and see. Combat is not the be-all and end-all.
And if absolutely none of that sounds fun, then why are you bothering? I mean, it's your LEISURE time. You shouldn't spend your own time on something that makes you so angry that you're not enjoying it anymore.
The pvp combat and to a lesser extent the pve combat is unbalanced. PvP is most notable with many classes just not able to take part as their is always some uber-kiddie with every exploit and the one power macro who just can't be stopped.
But the more serious problem is that the game just isn't fun. Whatever made half-life so much greater the quake makes SWG so much less then and this is really nasty, any game out there.
I have played it for a few months and I slowly come to the realisation that there are no unbalances bugs or lack of content. The entire game from beginning to end is just wrong. It seems like every decission they took they took the one that was the least fun. I think that if you really sat down with the game, noted every irritant and then build a game with those you would have the perfect MMORPG. There is something there but sony is unable to bring it out, they tried for two years and honestly it is only getting worse.
Of course those who still play it will defend it, they are like smokers who say they like smoking, SWG has one thing, like EQ it is addicting, the addicition is you searching for the little bit of fun that Sony has missed. You think that just around the next skill box, the next job there is gonna be fun. There isn't.
Perhaps MMORPG's themselves are flawed.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think this shows that fundamentally Star Wars Galaxies design is flawed. If a year of bug fixes doesn't make the game more fun, the bugs weren't the main problem. Just look at the core design decisions that have messed up how the game can be played.
1. Setting - Galactic Civil war during the middle of the OT.
This basically means that you have to limit Jedi, can't have any quests, mob kills, or loot that have far reaching consequences because it would interefere with the continuity. The devs just painted themselves into a corner where the power of the players had to be artificially kept low
Contrast this with the popular KOTOR which the devs had pretty much free reign. Want hundreds of Jedi running around? sure. Want a homicidal assassin droid? okay. Want to kill the dark lord of the sith? It's Cool.
2. Economy - Pure player driven
Players are by their nature greedy, People want new, useful, shiney things, just look at the successful camp-n-loot gameplay of EQ. Well the pure player economy means that adventurers have to focus on cash missions rather than exploration. What incentive do you have to explore if you don't get a reward, and infact you are penalized, since those who are just running baz nitch money missions are driving up prices. Finally the devs understood and included more useful loot drops. I think they are slowly getting to balancing loot-vs-player.
3. Character Development - pure skill based
Major balancing headaches. A pure class driven structure makes balancing so much easier, since you can have very specific roles. We are still looking at balancing issues a year later in SWG. It used to be the uber creature handlers walking around with 3 rancors within a day. Then it was the pistoleers able to waste people with ultra fast guns, then there were 1 shot kill rifle men, and then there have always been the pvp medics. What makes it so hard is there are so many combinations, and you can't make 1 combination significantly worse/better than another.
4. Size of the Universe - HUGE
I remember the devs bragged that the universe would be several times the size of EQ and RoK expansion together. Of course, they forgot to mention it would have half the content. They basically decreased the density of "interesting" stuff. So instead of 5 minutes between an interesting dungeon, or camp like in EQ, it was a 20 minute boring run where you would see nothing. Vehicles have definately helped, since you get the sense of size along with being able to get from point A to point B quickly. But all the content still feels diffuse.
5. Combat - Typcial RPG Style
It just breaks down the "feel" of Star Wars. I don't remember a Stormtrooper running up 2 feet from Luke and both of them standing there for a few minutes taking shots at each other (including several hits). In the movies they had long gun battles, it was just because people were dodging, running around, taking cover not because they had huge amount of hitpoints. I had hoped SWG would have created an innovative way capturing the feel of battling with blasters, but they didn't.
Like I said, to me the game design is inherently flawed. I think that is why they are focusing on the JtL expansion. Because it will be their way of breaking away from the contraints of their original decisions. If it works out I think we will see a focus on the space aspects of SWG, probably to the detriment of the land based RPG game that is being played now.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
i picked the game up a few weeks after launch, and played for about three months. the game was decent, but the buginess and all around lack of content brought me to cancel. i reactivated in december, and played for another two months. player cities and vehicles had just gone live, and jedi were starting to pop up here and there. but there still wasnt much to do in the game, and things were terribly unbalanced. i got bored with it, and cancelled again.
fast forward 5 months, to the end of june. at the request of some friends, i reactivated. Man was I in for a surprise. there are literally jedi EVERYWHERE. openly whipping out their lightsabers in public, acting like idiots, etc. combat in the game is a joke. everyone runs around in high resist armor, with mega buffs, making them almost untouchable in most PvE situations. and PvP is just as unbalanced as ever. people exploit the grouping feature of the game, so they can take harder missions than they could normally get, then solo them with thier uber armor and buffs, making ridiculous amounts of money. the combat revamp was a glimmer of hope, that things would change, and people would start playing the game together again, rather than arguing with one another when someone in the group got part of the payout from their mission because they were within a few hundred meters when it was completed.
i was considering paying for a 6 month subscription, which would have had me covered through the combat revamp, which was generally though to be coming in the next publish (major patch), the PvP revamp, which was generally thought to be in the following publish, and then JTL. After hearing about this announcement, instead i promptly cancelled yet again. I am just now in the process of finishing selling off all my stuff in game, and will sell my millions of credits on ebay or some such place. three strikes and you are out SOE. this is one player that won't be coming back for more of your lies and deceit.
and one last comment: hayden said " The pace of our updates has been phenomenal and we?ve been adding major new things to the game, like player cities, player vehicles, the whole Jedi Revamp. These are not easy tasks to undertake and they?re not done in a week. This is months and months and months of work."
umm, mr. producer man, these were features that were originally supposed to LAUNCH WITH THE GAME. your jedi revamp would not have been necessary if they hadn't half assed the system the first time they implemented it. don't come to us about all this 'content' you have added, when it is stuff that was promised to the playerbase well before the game even launched. then it took 6 months to get it in the game. *cough* hack *cough*