Joe Wrote:

Robert,

Here are my list of issues that I think are problems with NGE:

1) The player economy: One of the most compelling aspects of the old game
was the player driven economy. Each galaxy's economy was different, some
more inflated than others, but it was a real and functioning economy. With
the NGE, all of the items that one could loot pre-NGE basically became
worthless, thereby making the time spent acquiring them meaningless.

2) Component Loots useless: Krayt tissue that was used to make guns, vibro
motors used to make weapons, Giant Dune Kimogila scales used to make armor
and many other looted components were made useless with the NGE. They are
useless because armor does not decay and crafting was made worthless with
decent complete items (weapons, armor, etc..) being a looted. Many players
spent a lot of time trying to get the best components to make the best
weapons and armor. The time spent for these items is now meaningless.

3) Crafting useless: There is no reason to be a crafter since there is no
decay on items and the best items are now loot drops. There were players
and groups of players that created virtual corporations. They role-played
tycoons and became shrewd business people in order to "dominate" a
particular business on a galaxy. On our galaxy, houses placed in prime
spots were sold as real estate. So anyone that had built or was working on
building one, found that their time spent doing so was now meaningless.

4) Roleplaying now pointless: With the changes to the interface, it made
chatting in game very different. When NGE hit, you would see people just
standing in a city, jumping because the new chat system had changed the keys
and space bar made poeple jump. Talking and communicating in combat is all
but impossible without Team Speak or some other voice system. With chatting
being made harder, there is less insentive to socialize and role play.

5) Entertainers made pointless: The removal of battle fatigue with the CU
was a mistake. However, they added in experience buffs to entertainers,
which helped to keep entertaining fun to play. Entertainers were not all
interested in combat. Some entertainers like to entertain and chat. They
role played being dancers and the like. They chatted and flirted with their
"customers" and had fun doing it. With NGE, entertainers became useless and
since a player could not drop and try another skill, if they wanted to try
another profession, they would have to re-roll. By re-rolling, they would
lose all of their relationships that they had built in game. The second
charecter (or third) helps somewhat in this regard, but the fact that a
charecter is locked into a profession is a very drastic change from the
previous way the game was played. Additionally, I think SOE did themselves
a disservice by allowing a second slot. Many veteran players had multiple
accounts (read subscriptions). If they stay with NGE, they would not need
to pay for as many accounts.

6) The removal of player bounties: Again, this is a role playing issue, as
many players loved to role play as bounty hunters and hunt jedi. Say what
you want about forced PvP, but it was a very compelling system. The penalty
and reward system with player bounties caused many players to work very hard
to be effective bounty hunters or good at escaping (jedi). The fact that
there was so much acrimony over the system was a good indication that it was
working well. The removal of this game mechanic was a terrible mistake.

7) Jedi as a starter profession: In this time line, jedi were mostly
non-existant. For long-time fans, having a lot of jedi around has been a
problem since publish 9. With jedii being made a starter profession, the
time spent by pre-NGE jedi was made worthless. Sure, SOE gave pre-NGE jedi
a special robe and crystal, but that in no way compensates them for the
commitment and dedication for making a jedi. Disclosure: I stared playing
in July 03 and I did not have jedi. I never wanted to be a jedi. I was a
bounty hunter, and that's all I ever wanted to play.

8) Smugglers/Rangers/Droid Enginee/Etc: All of these professions were
promised revamps and updates at one point or another, People that role
played these charecters were led to believe, for years in the case of
smugglers, that their profession would be fixed. The reality is that SOE
was secretly developing another game and the promises of fixes and updates
were never really going to happen. Smugglers still can not smuggle, and
many of their favorite abilities, like slicing were removed from the game.

9) NGE developed in secret: The NGE was developed with little, nearly no,
existing player involvement. You could reasonably argue the business need
for the NGE from SOEs perspective, but the way that the NGE was developed
leads to distrust of SOE. Paying customers were expecting promised
improvements to the game as a whole, when in reality, programming effort was
not going into the game, but a new game, the NGE.

I have more issues that I could raise, but for me it comes down to the loss
of role playing and the devaluing of my time and effort. As a result of the
NGE, I cancelled my two accounts.

I can add more later if you like. The combat system, old loots not working
(skill enhancing attachments), bugs, and other issues are additional areas
where I can expand.

Thanks.
- Joe

Bloodraven:As a player Joe I can relate to most of this and I have to say sure I like the NGE but these are things that I will miss as a player and I do hope SOE could find a way to incorporate this type of centent into the game in the future.

Chris Wrote:

hi robert,
i was just up on war cry reading your articles on the nge and swg vet
players as well as some other articles in regards to the nge. in one article
posted by you, the galaxy remains strong, they say that swg is back up to
80% of the player base and a lot of vets have come back. this is so not
true. my wife and i have both played swg for almost 2 years, my account
expired on the 9th of december and hers does not till the 10th of january.
anyway, i logged in under her account on the 23rd on shadowfire. i went to
all the planets except Mustafa because we both cancelled that, and found
that there might have been 200 players on the whole server. 200?? this is
what you call a strong galaxy?? there use to be 200 players in the mining
outpost on dantoine on friday night!!!! i do not see how you think this game
is going to do well when over a month after the nge the servers are still
ghost towns.

thanks for reading my mail
chris

Bloodraven: I will agree the servers seem so empty and I feel it is just because the players are more spread out and I am findind the servers are played at way different times of the day now as grouping is not a must and you do not have to be on when others are to be in a group, but I do have to admit it is nice to be able to not have to lag thru 200 players in the Dantooine Mining Outpost just to work my skills, because I was almost forced to run in a group to survive. I have noticed since the NGE players are more spread out and it is no longer uncommon to see players off in the wild on thier own hunting as that is the way they like to play or they got frustrated and just wanted to be alone.

Steve Wrote

I am on a Satellite Broadband, connection ping time 1200-2500. Before
the NGE I could barely play and could solo most of the time just fine.
I had worked up to CL 80 and was working on JEDI. I could not do PvP
or base raids. It was hard to play in a group, I would get maybe one
shot off for a whole mission or raid. I was a Master CH and the pets
kept me live. I could not even complete the first space quest. I only
used my ship to planet jump.

In the NGE I can't get though the space part of the tutorial in test
center. After the changes when to production I could not kill grey
mobs.

I really liked SWG. I had just bought a copy for my wife to play with
me. maybe in a couple of month I will try it again. The best thing was
the ability to switch professions. That is what was the hardest to
lose, and the pets. The only other MMO that I have like as much and
since gone back to is Anarchy Online.

Thanks Steve.

This writer we will refer to as DJM wrote to me with his comments on the NGE:

Robert:
I just wanted to thank you for publicly taking the stance that you have. I personally LOVE the new game format. The combat went from click and wait (BORING) to completely interactive. Now, skill counts in combat. Before the NGE, pretty much if you took on a NPC of much higher level, you were sure to die. Now, by learning to master the skills given to me. I have been able to take down stormtroopers as high as 17 clvls above me. (I routinely took down lvl 45 elite troopers as a lvl 28 BH).

I played the game for nearly 8 months before the NGE. It was understandable, I guess, but I agree it was too complicated. I am a 31 year old attorney. I am no idiot. But many features were not intuitive, and let's face it, SOE/LEC (hereinafter referred to as "SOE") has never published a decent guide to their game. If there was one (I bought one by a 3rd party publisher for JTL) it was quickly outdated by changes to the game. I did not have time to play the game 24/7, though, since I have a wife and child and busy practice. Before NGE I was more often frustrated than having fun. Now it is the other way around. in 8 months of playing I had only made it to clvl 24. Now, in a matter of a few weeks, I am playing a profession I love, am having a blast, and am actually making progress - I've gained 13 levels this month.

I do feel bad for the people who loved to be crafters and entertainers and creature handlers. I am hopeful that through further work on the game, entertainers and crafters will have more significant roles since their presence in the game definitely makes the game more star warsy to me. And maybe they will bring back creature handlers, we'll just have to wait and see. Obvioulsy, they took a giant leap with the NGE, but I am sure that a year from now, we will look back and say that it was simply a first step. Hopefully, with time, SOE will continue to build the game back up again, and make all the professions fun, functional, and distinguishable. What people need to understand is that the initial implementation of the NGE was not the final package; it was a necessary first step to tear it down to that point, and from here on out it will only get better, with content and bug fixes.

THE MOST IMPORTANT POINTS I wanted to make, and I hope you will share them, are as follows:

1. It makes absolutely NO SENSE to me that 90% of the vets are complaining that SOE/LEC are trying to make the game more like WoW, when, in the same breath, they are openly declaring that they have switched to WoW and are abandoning SWG. It is an inconsistent statement to bash SOE/LEC for trying to be more like WoW (regardless of whether that criticism is true) and imply that WoW is a horrible thing, and then say that you are switching to WoW because it is so great. If WoW is so great that you are going to make it your full-time pursuit now, why is it a bad thing that SOE makes SWG more like it? I am not saying it IS more like it, I am just arguing the point.

2. I have heard many vets say that the reason they were in SWG was not the game, but the community. They claim that SOE destroyed all that. But again, I believe that their conduct is inconsistent with their statement. The only people who can destroy the community are members of the community. If you are really playing SWG for the community, and the community decides to stay together, then no change to the game will undermine that. I suspect, however, that they are lying, and that they really did play the game for the game, and also happened to enjoy the community. Otherwise, they would still be here. Ultimately, it was their choice to leave their game and their community. If their community meant anything to them at all, as they claim it is like someone dying, then they would have "suffered" the NGE to save their invaluable community and keep it intact.

It is an understandable reaction to the NGE from the vets. No one likes change. However, I place all my faith in SOE. I know that most would say that is a stupid thing to do. But I sincerely believe that the ppl who are working on our game at SOE RIGHT NOW care very deeply about this game and its future, or they would not be working so hard and making such radical changes. Regardless, SOE/LEC is the only entity that can save our game in the long run. Many of the vets are short-sighted, I think. If SOE knew that they had to change the game or let it die, then I am glad it has changed and may yet live so that we may enjoy it in its new form rather than not at all. What they have done took major guts. They had to know that a terrible reaction would happen from those who are allergic to change. But I am also impressed with how much they continue to work on and get resolved in such a short time. I pray that all of those at SOE who are working feverishly to save our game stay positive, and realize that many of us love the new game, and are their biggest fans moving forward. There is much work to be done, but I, for one, can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I think SWG will be a great game when they have finished implementing the NGE changes.

In the paraphrased (and somewhat altered lol) words of Leia Organa, "SOE/LEC, you are our only hope."

Please feel free to share or republish any portions of this correspondence that you would like (except, of course, my personal information such as real life name and contact info or character name - I don't want to be flamed either in real life or on my server).

Respectfully,

DJM

Bloodraven: Tis sad when a person feels they need to be left anonymous when speaking freely not to be chastized for thier personal feelings. Is this what the community has become a witch burning unruly mob?

Craig Wrote:

"Hello,

I can sum up the downfall of SWG very briefly. Nancy MacIntyre, the game's senior director at LucasArts has openly stated that the game enabled players to be too much like Uncle Owen and they wanted players to be Han Solo. What they fail to realize is that a good portion of us wanted to be like Uncle Owen. We wanted to live in the Star Wars Galaxy and grow in it. Not turn it on, play for ten minutes, get a level or two and log off. I can be Luke or Han in any other Lucas game. This game went past all that. They didn't want the depth, so I went elsewhere. Simple as that. 3 of my five toons, were crossed trained crafters. One was a pre-pub 9 Jedi and one was a CH/BE. All gimped now. I've played since beta. They removed all depth from the game. I gave it a month and was still not impressed, so I cancelled all five accounts.

I'm sorry they did this. Truly I am.

Regards

Craig"

Leonard wrote:

"Every time I hear the word "iconic" I want to vomit. I don't want to be an icon, I want to be me, The new game is just that. A new game. It's not the game I played before, it's not the game I paid for."

I can relate as a player to both of these guys comments I like the individuality and when people saw your toon they did not know if when they met you on the battle field if you were going to pull out a flamethrower, if you were going to send in a well trained pet or if you were in fact an Bounty Hunter playing under cover to get your mark. It left some surprise to battle and we were each our own individual person in our own world of SWG that we shared with eachother.

Well said guys and thanks for your comments.

Robert "Bloodraven" Greene
Assistant Site Manager
SWG WarCry