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

You You You

[eldavojohn]

"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."

(Emphasis mine)

You can try to say the NGE was for the fans. You can try to tell me that the fans wanted it and welcomed it. But I was a fan and I remember the day that the test servers got the combat upgrade patch. I remember people running through coronet screaming that the world was ending. I remember telling them to can it and that everything was going to be ok. I was wrong.

So tell me, Mr. Cox & Mr. Smedley, when are you going to listen to the fans? What really brought about the CU because it wasn't complaints from the fans. Was it LucasArts twisting your arm? Was it because you had a crazy idea and it got out of control so you couldn't stop because you had already dumped too much money into it? Were you worried about the ROI on all that work? Was it because some corporate yes-man said, "There's more money this way!" and since you're just a producer looking for profit, you followed blindly? What really was it? And why the hell didn't you listen to your fans after/while you made the decision?

Why do you turn a blind eye to everyone in favor of classic servers? Why don't you let people vote with server selection? I'm sick of softball questions pitched to SOE people who were in charge of destroying something I once loved. Have you ever admitted to making a mistake in your entire life?

"I try to read the forums on a daily basis and I try and get out there and respond at least every week or two to let the people know, 'Yes, we are still actively listening,' " McDaniel said. "I strongly encourage my teams to get out there on the forums on a daily basis. A lot of the design team are out there actively responding or gathering feedback on some of the systems we're working on.

If I may comment on those forums, you have to play the game to post on them. They are tightly moderated by non-SOE representatives. Never have I had so many posts locked/removed or trashed because the mods didn't approve. There is no room for vocal dissent in your community and that's why it will or has already fallen apart.

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.

Re:You You You

[lickalotapuss]

You can thank the 'Elder Jedi' for starting the ball rolling on fucking up SWG. If these players, and there were thousands of them, had not spent their entire time hologrinding, then village grinding, in the obsessive pursuit of an alpha class that shouldn't have been in the game to begin with, they might have seen that their were other things to do in the game besides powerlevelling and then complaining that they'd run out of things to do.

The economy was royally screwed, due to Jedi existing completely outside of it; roleplaying was tossed out the window due to the obvious canonical discrepancies of having a bunch of Jedi running around during a time when the movies have said they were extinct, and the community was fractured because people no longer wanted to group with their friends or do anything remotely resembling community unless that was a side-effect of their precious grind to Jedi.

Elder Jedi are not the players that were screwed by the NGE. Star Wars fans, roleplayers, crafters, and social players are the ones who should be pissed off at SOE. People that played Jedi were part of the problem, and it always makes me laugh to hear them belly-ache about how SOE has been unfair to them. That's actually the one good thing about the NGE: it invalidated all the time that these jack-offs spent grinding their uber-toons, and thankfully drove most of them away. I only wish that could have been the case a little sooner, back before the game was beyond saving.

Eight months into NGE

[kherr]

It's been about eight months now since NGE was pushed live, and SWG is a shadow of its former self. Worse yet, they haven't delivered on any of the NGE promises (such as full collision detection) or restored the galactic civil war, but instead are trying to add WoW-style content (Battle of Restuss). It's all so forced and incomplete.

Sure, some people like aspects of the new combat. But melee was ruined. Then they put in a fix for melee, and it screwed up other things. But the real destruction of SWG by NGE is the end of the player community. The NGE changes have eliminated any need to interact with people: no more wounds or fatigue that need healing by doctors or in cantinas, switching to a loot-drop economy and screwing over crafters. Want to find the most powerful weapons or best armor? It doesn't really matter anymore, it's all based on your combat level and not the gear itself.

There are still many NGE-introduced bugs, eight months later. SWG always has had a reputation for bugs and being unfinished, but prior to NGE there was always a sense that new stuff was being added. NGE bugs are all because of resetting things, so stuff that used to work doesn't. It's like re-introducing problems that used to be gone. Very frustrating for players.

The attempts to turn SWG into a persistent KOTOR or a WoW work-alike they've ruined the game. If you like fighting for an hour or so every night maybe SWG is worthwhile. Or you can just play an FPS that doesn't have a monthly subscription. The stats on mmogchart.com don't show an increase in subscribers, that's for sure.

Except that....

[Jtheletter]

really make sure was a high-quality game that provided the action experience that you'd expect from a Star Wars game

Except that that was exactly NOT what the large installed base expected. What they expected was tweaks to the system they were currently enjoying, not having the carpet yanked from under their feet. What is it about Sony that even after decades of failed proprietary formats and software gaffs they still think they know better than the user what the user wants?

Grant McDaniel a.k.a. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf

[Anonymous Coward]

So NOW we know where the Iraqi Information Minister went after the war.

Screwing the Dead Horse

[Bonker]

The real crime here is that Smed and Lucas are so busy screwing the dead horse they've created of the game experience that they're unwilling to realize that all the 'image upgrades' in the world won't magically add fun back into the game.

SWG was a heap and a half when it shipped. It's less than half a heap now that all the depth has been artificially amputated.

This is typical of SOE, but I really did expect better from Lucasarts.

Other purchases

[IflyRC]

My dislike with how SOE treated this game (I'm a former subscriber from Beta 2 forward until the NGE was announced) prompted me to reevaluate Sony as a whole. This year I decided to make a new camcorder purchase. Sony wasn't even an option. Proprietary memory sticks, SOE, Sony Music and root kits....NO WAY was I going to buy anything that Sony made and probably never will again.

Why are we beating a dead horse.

[SmallFurryCreature]

Why do people still care about SWG, a games that started bugged and to the outsiders at least seems to only get more buggy over the years.

There is a game called Locomotion, a half-assed sequel to the game Transport Tycoon, by Chris Sawyer. It is not perfect. In some ways it is worse then its parent. It is a tycoon game allowing you to build a road, rail, sea and air transport network. The original had a dedicated, still does, following but after a couple of years the game for me was finished. The graphics too old, and the gameplay too restricted by the limited engine.

Some of the gameplay limits (station size, train length, annoying breakdown) wear removed with patches but in the end TT and its fan made offspring are just too old.

Locomotion has at least better graphics but I am again running into the fact that Chris Sawyer has a very different idea about games then I would like. His eternal obsession with things wearing down was easily patched (no dear Chris, in real life you do not have to replace a train every 3 years just to keep it running. Trains 100 years old still run reliably.)

But the extremely limited signalling, morronic path-finding and restricted station layout are once again turning me off from the game. Not because I don't want to play anymore but because I can't play the game I want to play it.

What does this have to do with SWG? Well not much except that TT and indeed Locomotion are by any outsiders as dead a horse as you can find. So why still flog it?

Simple. BECAUSE THERE HAS BEEN NOTHING TO REPLACE IT

SWG for all its faults still stands alone. Pre-CU and certainly Pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies is a unique game, not just in gameplay terms but also because Sony is one of the few online companies who do not think everyone in the world owns a credit card.

I swear to god that the next person who recommends Eve Online (Credit card only) to me, I will call him a NGE-developer. If you then point out that I could always buy a pre-paid card for Eve Online (only buyable from stores that only accept credit cards) or use paypal (dutch paypal only accepts credit cards) I am going to call them a SWG bug tester.

One thing that made SWG standout was its proffesion system. You didn't have one. Rather most new players would take all the base proffesions available and dabble in each, gaining experience and spending their limited (fixed) amount of skillpoints on getting better in their proffesions. So a new player would have some markmanship (ranged), melee, scout (harvesting from animals), crafting (turning harvested stuff into goodies), medic (turning dead animals into goodies to cure ouchies), maybe even a bit of entertainer to rest your mind and look at your avatars thight ass in a skimpy dress. Oh was that just me?

NGE changed this. It is now exactly like Everquest 1-2, WoW and indeed every goddamn Korean MMORPG. If I wanted to play any of them, I would. SWG was the one I stuck with longest.

But so what? You in the end still had to choose a profession, sacrificing some lesser ones to free skillpoints so you could advance in others. Yes. Correct. BUT if you ever tired of your chosen proffesion you could easily learn a new one. Tired of melee, pick up some pistol skills.

Ah but you can do that in other MMORPG's, just start a new character. But no. In SWG, you didn't have to do that. You would just slowly migrate from your old job, loosing skills and learn new ones. You would still have the same name, still be the same person.

The impact of only being allowed one character per server should not be underestimated. Many a person learned the hardway that this means you can be tracked far more easily, be an asshole and get ignored and you are ignored until you delete your character and restart a new one.

But the most important one for me was that you didn't have to do all the beginners stuff again. Your character respecced from swordsman to pistoleer did not have to get the Point of Interest badges again. In everquest 2 I go

PC Gamer is funny.

[space_jake]

Flipping through old issues cleaning up and I found something funny. About a year before its release, they had an article about upcoming MMO games. Their summary on SWG, "It'll take a boner of Jar Jar proportions to mess this one up."

WoW is the problem

[stilleon]

The problem here is that they are worried about what players want... not their players but what will garner them the buggest buck. Face it, they have one of the best licenses in the biz. They were doing good with about 200,000 subscribers. Then here comes World of Warcraft. Even though it is not a major license it does phenomenal, becoming the most played MMO ever (and still is), dwarfing all others. I know the board of directors of Sony must've been up in arms. "We payed for Star Wars, what went wrong." The whole staff was in danger of losing their jobs. Of course the suits will yell, "make it like Warcraft." Of course having a good license means squat in the world of MMORPGs. Matrix Online only has about 30,000 subscribers. I played WoW for about 6 months and lost interest. It is very basic. The quests are not all that interesting, and the character classes are not that well done. There is no community like in the old SWG.I wonder sometimes why it does so well for so long. But for every subscriber above SWG that was vote for them to change their game. So stop blaming Sony Online for the change. Instead blame all the people that like th crap game WoW is. They caused the change.

Too many Jedi...

[foreverdisillusioned]

You know, I think one of the best ways to solve the "everyone wants to play a Jedi" problem would be to release a 100% free version of SWG that allows you to play the Star Wars equivalent of Joe Sixpack. Allow the free players very basic access to everything, but you make it so that e.g. if they try to fire a laser pistol their accuracy is absolutely horrible. No skills (except perhaps some very basic crafting-type skills?), no XP, no way for the Joe Sixpack characters to level up or make a significant amount of money (except perhaps by offering quests? PC-generated quests would be interesting, but I'm not sure if it's doable.) However, if they really want to they can serve as mules or scouts--they just shouldn't expect to live very long if they do that. Come to think of it, this would be a great addition to any MMORPG (especially City of Heroes/Villains.) A little atmosphere; a little something to combat the feeling that the world is filled with nothing but heroes/villains/adventurers. Plus free advertising. I think it'd be more than worth the extra load placed on the servers, but I could be wrong...