Interview with SWG Producer Grant McDaniel

Robert Cox from SWG.WarCry.com interviews SOE producer Grant McDaniel on the three-year anniversary of Star Wars Galaxies. From the article:
"'There was certainly a concern over how [the NGE] was going to be pursued by the players, but we knew that to make the kind of game that us and LucasArts expected for a Star Wars online game, we needed to make the changes,' said McDaniel. 'And to actually be able to continue to support the game that we've got, we needed to make those type of changes, to make it something that we could really feel good about, that we could really make sure was a high-quality game that provided the action experience that you'd expect from a Star Wars game.'"

Comments

Re:You You You

[GundamFan]

I played through the NGE also.

I quit, not because of the game changing (it was kinda fun if you gave it a chance) I quit because of all the bitching from my fellow players. In the end it became impossible to have a fun play session without having to deal with mass protests or hate-spam in the local channel (why these people didn't just quit I don't know).

The other thing that got to me was the so called "Elder Jedi" who made it there "job" to abuse anyone who respeced into or started a new jedi because they didn't earn it. I think the "alpha" class is a big part of what lead to the downfall of SWG.

Re:You You You

[XenoRyet]

Do you know what it took to get one of these "Elder jedi"? I was with SWG from day one, and it was too much work for me, personaly to get a Jedi. However, my roomate did get one, and I saw what it took. It was on the order of 40 hours of gameplay a week, for over a year, constant profession leveling. I think he mastered 3/4 of the professions in the game, and that was just to unlock the slot. After that he had 6 months of Jedi training out at the village.

In other words, it was enough work, and a big enough achivement, that I wouldn't begrudge them a little anger at the fact that all of a sudden everyone and their brother could just roll up a character that took them littleraly years to work up to. The vets in that game got a raw deal, and I think a little bit of bitching is not out of line.