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Star Wars and Raph Leave SOE?
Gamespot reports that Raph Koster, chief creative officer for Sony Online Entertainment, has left the company. While Gamespot seems to confirm this news, there are a number of MMOG-related rumours swirling at GDC. Mythic may be in EA's sights for acquisition, and Sony Online may soon be losing the rights to the Star Wars license. IE: No more SWG. Grimwell online has a rundown on these virulent rumours. Chris Kramer (from SOE) said words to the effect of "We're in it together for the long haul." SWG will be staying with Sony Online for some time to come.
I played Everquest 2 for a year and 2 months. With 3 large combat changes the game is not what it originaly was when it came out. Which caused me to leave.
:P
I believe the same thing happened to SWG where they changed the game a great deal too much.
I don't know to many MMO players that are happy with the way SOE is doing business. It seems that in SOE's quest to gain more patronage, they fail to realize that the customers already in the game are playing it for the way it is. They don't want it to change drasticaly to gain other players that are looking for a more laid back game play.
If i wanted to play a game for 30 minutes and acomplish something i would play WoW. If i want to play a game that i won't be able to do anything except travel across the map in 30 minutes I'll play EQ2. For me i loved the complexity of the game. They've done away with that. And in turn they have done away with my subscription.
I see this as a signal that their are alot of troubles brewing within SOE.
Just a gamers Opinion though
SOE has screwed up SWG long enough, if they loose the licensing, who really cares? The few remaining players will be bummed, and rumors will float about some other company trying to do SWG right.
But having yet another solid and profitable independant developer like Mythic sucked up into the oppresive regime that is EA?!? I find that to be a much more disturbing thought.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Today there are dozens of Dev and producer posts that are out to counter the new wave of horrible press their lack of work and attention has created. It's all a joke so they can say, "Look how much we communicate!" when in fact it's their last ditch. The producer tripling his post count in one day impresses the small minded idiots, who get star-struck when a "red-name" (Dev) makes a post, but everyone else sees it for what it is : a glass of water thrown on a rampant house fire they created themselves because they simply didn't do what they promised. Again.
They are crooks (taking money for expansions one day before telling us the original game was getting shut down and they were putting a new one in, the NGE), liars (so many lies...some posts deleted later when they didn't think anyone was looking, but many remain), and don't understand the concept of setting a schedule/goal and getting it accomplished. Whatever dickhead is really in charge (Smed says it's not him today...then who the hell is it if not the producer?) needs to find employees who a) know their job, b) know how to do it efficently, and c) keep to some semblance of a schedule. They cry that it takes months of man hours to make a simple change - well, in that case, it's shoddy code to blame.
I wish Lucasarts would dump SOE - put the damn game out of it's misery. It's a complete boil on the arse of the Star Wars franchise, and the suits at SOE have spent three years telling people they were going to deliver a game that has never materialized. I've finally cancelled myself, and the only regret is that I spent any time at all playing a game where I was constantly told the "next big thing" was coming that would make the game an actual Star Wars experience; if the smug jack-offs like Smedley spent 1/10 of the energy they spend spinning shit, telling blatant lies about the game to trick people into playing/staying, into actually fixing the game, you'd have the biggest/best MMO in the Galaxy.
Unfortunately, that won't happen - SOE has ridden this pony as far as it can, and only the hardest-core-take-it-up-the-arse from the DEV fanbois (yes, I'm talking to you PsychoPyro, who kisses so much arse *I* get the bad taste in my mouth) are still there. I used to hope for the best, but they always deliver the worst. Eventually, even the most ardent supporter (except for the crazies, who are usually 16-year old bois who think when they get all growed up they could work for SOE so they start corporate kiss arse now) must realize that the game they say it will be never will be, any more than you should believe a leopard who tells you he's going to rearrange his spots. It's just not going to happen.