All Posts by admriker4

two more important factors to mention on why we vets hate SOE.

1.)  The expansion for Mustafar - This expansion was sold to the players for $30. Two days after it launched SOE announced the NGE changes. These changes would go live in 2 weeks. Naturally the community was outraged because we were all duped into buying an expansion for a game that would radically change in 2 weeks.

Features for this expansion were taken out or never implemented. An example - We bought the expansion because of the promise of a new creature handler necklace (allowing you to tame higher level creatures). 2 weeks after launch Creature Handler profession wouldnt even exist anymore.

2.) The lying - SOE flat out lied to us repeatedly. They lied about the expansion, they lied about the previous revamp. Subscription money is meant to pay for adding content and fixing the MMO you're paying for. Yet SOE took that money and developed an entirely new game in secret and lied about the whole affair.

Here is but a small list of the Lies SOE has told us over the years....

1. SWG wont launch until its ready - SOE repeatedly told us this game wont launch until its ready to go. This early on was to include space, JTL wasnt ever supposed to be an expansion. Lets also not forget key components not included at launch like player cities, vehicles, and jedi. As a beta player, I still remember the notice in beta forum that the game was going gold in 2 weeks. Everyone agreed it was a huge mistake but SOE ignored us.

2. Jedi - We all know that jedi was NEVER possible at launch. Yet SOE made post after post dangling that carrot and offering encouragement. They told us to get married, explore every world, build a home, etc. It made some think that jedi was some random amazing quest to be discovered. Soon though we learned the truth when SOE patched in several .tre files with obvious jedi implications 5 months after launch. Then the day after a patch several unlocked all at once.

3. Rebel Theme Park - Sorta ties into # 1 as it wasnt ready either. However SOE repeatedly lied about the theme park. If you recall, it was broken after Han's quests. Han tells us to seek out Lt. Lance on Dantooine, but there isnt any Lt. Lance anywhere. SOE tells us its working as intended despite nobody having found Lt. Lance after months and month of looking (my guild personally had several major expedition searches done over many weekends looking for him). Suddenly we learn the truth after a patch...Han now tells us to seek out Ackbar on Dantooine and the once empty abandoned rebel base now has several rebel nps in there. My guild who had followed the game for years in development was soooo pissed off they immediately disbanded and quit.

4. two part lie -

A. The Combat upgrade (curb) was top priority - Remember how SOE told us over and over again that the CURB was its number 1 focus. It would be first to get completed over the JTL expansion.

B. There were two separate teams working on JTL and the CURB.

We later learn both are lies. JTL gets pushed over the combat fixes AND we find out the CURB team has been merged with the JTL team. Whats really insulting is SOE goes on a PR campaign and tells the public that we players demanded JTL first. Another fat lie as every poll posted strongly stated we wanted the CURB first.

5. Combat Revamp - whatever you want to call it, this was meant as a reward for the vets who stayed around and played a broken game. Talk about a slap in the face when SOE announces the CU...a system as the devs told me at Celebration 3 was meant to "have a more broad appeal". This was SOE's 1st attempt at screwing over its current community for the wow crowd. All the promised fixes never happened. The armorsmith rep quit and was banned after he started a massive protest over changes they never asked for. In fact the CU brings in many more bugs than it fixes and never balanced anything.

6. The CU is here to stay - Smedley comes and makes his first post on swg forums asking for calm and patience. He states that in 6 months the cu will be working as intended so give them time to make things right. FAT LIE...during that time the NGE is either in design stages or already being worked on.

7. FRS - CU disables the end-game for jedi, our force ranking system. SOE tells us its being worked on. Later they state its al most done and just awaits final approval from LA. Of course we learn there wont ever be a FRS system and the nerfs we've been getting oover the past 6 months were done on purpose to weaken jedi into a regular class. For me personally, this is one of the more disgusting lies as it was obviously done to keep us jedi players paying.

8. Jabba Palace disappears - The last patch before the NGE garbage makes Jabba's palace completely disappear. SOE acts surprised and promises a fix is coming..another fat lie as we learn why after the nge hits. Jabba's palace was taken out to implement th new nge quests.

9. village breaks - Same patch breaks the village and the old man stops visiting people. SOE again lies to cover its tracks and tells us its being looked at. Of course it was just a cover for the nge.

10. Expansion - SOE presells an expansion with several promised features. One desired item is a creature handler necklace that will allow for the taming of higher lvl pets. Im not sure if that necklace was ever found but it didnt matter because 1 stinkin day after the nge launched Torres of LA announces the revamp of the game and removal of over 24 professions.

11. starter kit - SOE tells us the starter kit is an eroneous listing and will be removed. They deny the rumors of impending changes.

12. SOE tells us fixes will be faster. SOE says the whole reason behind the nge was to make balancing the game easier and would allow for faster publish fixes. In fact, it has slowed the game down to a crawl as publishes now seem to come every 4 months as opposed to almost monthly before the nge.

13. smuggler revamp - this one could have its own page on broken promises and lies.

14. Capitol ships - a dev at a fanfest shows the players capitol ships he has been working on. Later on SOE tells (months and months later) that it was just a dev fooling around with his laptop and this was never being considered. Of course SOE could have tol the players this months earlier rather than ignore the posts asking for more information. To flyboys, the capitol ship dream was their FRS system...ie end-game content they so very much wanted. It didnt hurt SOE to once again lie a little and let people keep paying while they waited for features that would never ever happen.

15. profession revamps - ranger comes to my mind foremost because my alt was a master ranger for years. It was painful to see rangers slowly dwindling in numbers as the profession remained broken forever. I still recall one of the camo kits (i think it was for Lok) required a type of meat to contruct, only problem was that meat didnt even exist ! And the final tease, SOE says ranger is the next revamp coming in the next publish...oops the next publish turned out to be the NGE.

Then there were the professions that got sorely needed revamps weeks before the nge hit. Why did SOE even bother to revamp squad leader if they were going to turn around and remove the profession entirely a few weeks later ? Maybe it was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.

16. Broken quests - How many times did SOE tell us a fix was in the works and it either never came or it took a year to do. And even when they finally did fix something like the Hermit quests, they turn right around and re-break them weeks later. My personal pet peeve for broken quests was the ones at the gungan sacred place. It pissed me off that not only were the quests incomplete, one of the npc's chat bubble was blank ! How tough would it have been to code in some simple words ? These quests were broken in beta, remained busted through launch right up to the nge.

The NGE broke several old quests as well. When I tried the 21 day free trial I started the krayt skull quests, some of my favorites with a great storyline. I got to the last part where I needed to talk to Darklighter only to my surprise he has no chat option. The NGE is 1 year old and Im assuming this quest remains broken, pathetic.

17. 6 month promises - Smedley has repeatedly made the 6 month promise for fixes. His very 1st post following the CU debacle asked the players to give SOE 6 months to get things fully working. He then makes the same promise after the NGE launches, needing 6 more months. Ironically, the post after nge is almost identical to the cu one (asking for time to fix things) and yet somehow the gullible desperate players buy into it AGAIN. Later SOE promises major revamps to each profession each coming within a month or two o each other. Later after MONTHS of no publishes and silence (the swg forums were literally rioting), SOE announces yet ANOTHER series of profession revamps. Typically, the pathetic player base thanks SOE devs in posts for answering their concerns. A year into the NGE, it remains broken, unfinished, with no end in site.

18. Item Conversion - Recall that the players were very concerned over losing their gear with the coming CU. We were repeatedly told that everything would convert properly. If you had an exceptional weapon with amazing stats, it would convert to an equal type of weapon for the CU. They were full of crap though and not only did our exceptional weapons and armor NOT convert properly, in many cases we now couldnt even equip them anymore !!!

CA's and AA's didnt convert because SOE took out several stats like dizzy, knockdown, the poison and disease resists, etc. Players that spent years and millions of credits to collect were overnight ruined. The final insult in classic SOE fashion, SOE adds in melee def and ranged def clothing that tailors can craft. They didnt even bother to take into account the thousands of players who spent their credits by the millions to get these things as ca/aa drops. A +12 melee def tape would possibly sell for 15-20 million, 1 day after the cu and a player now can buy a shirt with +17 melee AND ranged defense !!! So much for really being concerned with ca/aa conversions.

RIS Armor - Not only did the conversion for this armor become crap, it also got very common. I and some friends of mine were the few around who had even had any ris armor. Before the revamps, RIS armor was something one could try and get as a trophy to their hard work and dedication. Plus it took real skill to get. You had to know where the components dropped. You had to know spawn rates. You had to know where to find the giant dune kimos. You had to find addon components like shards to boost the completed armor's stats. In essence, it was a lot of hard work for players that yet again was totally tossed out the door. My ris helmet once had offers of 15 million credits, suddenly its for sale on vendors for 15k bleh.

BE Tissues - nge takes out bio-engineers and their tissues that make chef foods better. Now something that was once extremely common is the rarest most sought after item by crafters. And since food is a consumable, eventually there will be no more bio tissues around.

The theme here of course is SOE didnt give a damn about how their revamps would hurt or help their CURRENT community. I seriously doubt based on the evidence that they even looked at the changes, much less tried to ensure the conversion wouldnt screw us.

19. pearl drops - sometime into the cu pearl drops got really messed up. At first, over a weekend flawless and premium pearls are dropping like crazy and not just off krayts. Soon SOE hotpatches a "fix" in to correct whatever they were trying to fix before and the pearls stop dropping. Now premiums and flawless dont drop anymore. SOE responds to player concerns by telling them its working as intended. Later they admit there "might" be a problem but there were other things more important to fix. SOE lies and promises its being looked into.

According to my source, the pearl drops were broken or gated on purpose. This was done to remove the elite power items so jedi could be better balanced for the nge. I hear sometime after the nge the premium pearls were added back in but flawless never came back.

20. Gating content - According to a source who wrote a letter to CBS newsbag, SOE purposely gates its content to finish it. In other words, SOE breaks something to hide the fact that it remains unfinished. Why would SOE do this ? Well according to this person, it was done to basically use player subscription fees to pay for the finished development of that content. This source reported that this was done repeatedly for EQ1 expansions. Devs would then lie on the forums claiming that a fix was being worked on when in fact it was busted on purpose.

This of course is outrageous but not unexpected by SOE. To take subscriber money and finish something that the money from the expansion was already supposed to have paid for is unforgivable. Smedley responded on some other site he posts on that this was a fabrication and SOE had (allow me to quote) never once released an unfinished product to the public LOL. This same person later admits the nge is unfinished...oh and the CU is unfinished...my oh my how the lies grow.

Donald Faison from Scrubs plays MMO's.

He used to play Star Wars Galaxies but like most of us quit over the NGE fiasco.

first of all, we americans dont choose our presidents with votes. In 2000 the courts picked the president despite evidence that Bush lost. In 2004 Kerry won more votes but lost the election due to our silly electoral college system.

Second, it really doesnt matter who we vote for. Have you listened to Obama ? He is as pro-war as Mccain ever was. Obama will keep america in Iraq. Obama supports attacking Iran. Obama would use nukes as a first strike policy.

Americans have really no power to change our govt's policies. In 2006 we voted to throw out the republicans and replace them with Nancy Pelosi and other democrats. These democrats were voted in with the promise of impeachment hearings and ending the war immediately. 30 days into office and Pelosi tells us impeachment is off the table. And to further show where the democrats loyalties lie, theyve consistently voted money to fund the war every year.

Here is the big secret that the media wont talk about....there is really no difference between the candidates. There really is no difference between the two parties. Its nothing more than an illusion created to give the people an alleged option. Truth is, we have no option.

The elite banking families are the ones who dictate policy in the United States (as they do in Europe). The elite bankers forced the European Union onto that continent and theyre busy creating the next Union known as the North American Union.

These elite men choose our candidates for us. Both choices are the same so whoever we "choose" doesnt matter. The agenda set forth be the elite will be followed.

The media wont talk about the fact that both Obama and McCain are members of the Council of Foreign Relations...a group that openly supports and works for world socialist / fascist goverment.

McCain or Obama will lead the United States further into a global world goverment under the thumb of the Rockefeller and Rothschild families. The media wont report it and the public will point fingers at one of the parties when things go bad.

The whole system is a fraud but unfortunately the public isnt smart enough to see it. The same elite who manipulate politics also control the education system. As David Rockefeller stated when founding the General Education Board "I want a nation of workers, not a nation of thinkers"

In short.....we're all screwed.

Lotus Fleet sounds very appealing. Let me know when you've clarified your policy on klingons.

I see two playable options for myself....

scenario 1 - the game is geared toward conflict between factions (federation and klingon). I see myself roleplaying a renegade klingon captain with ties to the federation. I will of course work as a spy, reporting plans, possible attacks, and more to my federation friends. I will not engage federation ships unless forced to defend myself.

scenario 2 - the game works more like a competition between the factions with some cooperation possible. In this scenario I'd probably be a klingon captain assisting the federation when a fleet is necessary to repel a borg threat, etc. Pretty much the same as above but I wont need to worry about hiding a lot or reprisals from my fellow klingons.

oh and whats your website address

what will be Lotus Fleet's policy on working with the Klingons ?

Ive considered playing a klingon captain with some loyalties to the federation. This is assuming of course that its even possible for the klingons and federation to interact

Hmm I gotta say that was pretty enjoyable to read !

Question for you trekkies out there....

Ensign Ro is mentioned. I thought I read somewhere (or maybe it was a Voyager episode), werent the ex-starfleet people basically forgiven for their work with the Maqui ? As I remember it, the cardassians were revealed to be violating the treaty (the chief complaint by the maqui) and therefore vindicated the maqui members.

I could see Ro being sentenced for desertion cause she did bail on starfleet. But Im assuming otherwise any work done with the Maqui is longer considered a crime ?

"And on stardate 58370.4, Ro Laren surrendered to Starfleet custody. A former member of Starfleet who defected to the Maquis in 2370, Ro plead guilty to charges of desertion and was ordered to report to a penal facility on Earth for rehabilitation."
 

Originally posted by Die_Scream

Originally posted by admriker4

I was on the fence so thank you for the video. I certainly wont be buying this game now

graphics look very similiar to world of warcraft.

You are wrong, the graphics are miles above WoW (which is a good game)

UI looks exactly like world of warcraft

Unlike every MMO released?

combat animations are boring and dull and some were very simliar to world of warcraft. I saw a "thunderclap" move in that video

No, you didn't. We get it, you are a WoW hater, way to fight conformity.

combat is too slow...he beat on that first mob forever, then the mob runs and he chases it forever. he's tossing thrown axes at it and it still didnt die.

Cherry pick a section of one of the videos and critique it, brilliant. By the way, it was a human player who ran to the guards when he was going to die. So you didn't even watch the videos, just knee-jerk response to a game you illogically hate.

the landscape is lifeless and lacks detail. I saw a muddy brown ground with some tiles on the path which yes reminds me of world of warcraft.

Does the phrase, "broken record" ring a bell with you? So let's be honest here, you have a hate-on for WoW, probably a love for AoC, and this results in a hate for WAR. Don't bother to answer, you're pathetic.

The game reminds me too much of world of warcraft.

Really? This red herring argument escaped me, you should have mentioned it earlier.

 

i watched it again...and yes there was a thunderclap in there. it even had a similiar effect, a slow / root type of debuff on it. It also had the same sound effect as a warrior's thunderclap in wow.

I hate some things about wow but overall I dont hate the game. I played it for 2-2.5 yrs on and off.

And no Im no fan of age of conan, I lasted 5 days in that awful game.

I saw an uninspiring boring video.

Your attack and assumptions about me are wrong. I dont have to be a fan of aoc to dislike what I saw in that video.  I dont have to hate wow to hate warhammer as well.

Originally posted by bigbaldpapa

Man... I am serious.  If you want to give away your stuff...  I still play that failure of an MMO.  Until KoTOR hits that is. 

I love me some Star Wars and MMO's... what can I do?

I hope none of the SWG NGE players show up in KOTOR. I dont want a community of players from SWG NGE over there. Its immoral and unethical to play SWG and a threat to the genre. And frankly, nge players never learn their lesson.

Oh okay, the devs say low pop is being worked on....LOL....do I need to post the list of lies from SOE again ? And they also promised us that the FRS was being worked on as well. Didnt Smelly himself mention a need for server mergers like 2 yrs ago ? Yeah they'll be fixing your low pop server problems, its called a shutdown.

It doesnt matter if the game is good or bad. The game's current version was created from stolen subscription money. Shame on you for playing.

And the game certainly isnt growing. How many of these silly posts claim growth despite devs admitting the game is dying, and much more evidence. 2-3rd character slots, player transfers, and free trials dont equal growth. If it did, you wouldnt see SOE cutting more staff from SWG and no possibility of an expansion.

I was on the fence so thank you for the video. I certainly wont be buying this game now

graphics look very similiar to world of warcraft.

UI looks exactly like world of warcraft

combat animations are boring and dull and some were very simliar to world of warcraft. I saw a "thunderclap" move in that video

combat is too slow...he beat on that first mob forever, then the mob runs and he chases it forever. he's tossing thrown axes at it and it still didnt die.

the landscape is lifeless and lacks detail. I saw a muddy brown ground with some tiles on the path which yes reminds me of world of warcraft.

The game reminds me too much of world of warcraft.

Originally posted by Brenelael

Originally posted by admriker4

I see a lot of negative posts here and to be honest its not really warranted.

Yes many of us wanted a virtual world. Yes we hoped for guild run ships. We didnt get them.

Im okay with that because I still think Cryptic might do the Trek galaxy right. They immediately mention that exploration will be very important. They will let us discover and name planets.

To me that says the game wont be totally focused on combat. These devs just might give us a decent game !

This is as close as I get to fanboism Cryptic so I hope my beta invite is in the mail soon lol.

 

Yes but if you hadn't noticed the vast majority of those negative posts are by the same 2 posters so are no need for concern. I agree with you 100% on being hopeful for STO. This new team lead by Craig Zinkievich seems to have heard the vast majority of the complaints about the PE version of STO and are addressing them accordingly. The 2 largest complaints about PE's vision was no ship interiors and only one faction at launch and both of those have already been rectified. So far this new STO looks pretty sweet!

 

Bren

It seems like its more than two posting complaints about the game.

I understand the concern and passion for the game, Im a long-time trekkie as well. Ive gone to the conventions, Ive collected the memorabilia, and I was right there complaining when they cancelled Enterprise. The phone on my desk is the Enterprise D, My wife hates it because whenever someone calls the nacelles light up and the red alerts sound acts for the ring.

In short, I love Star Trek and want the game to be amazing.

Having said that, I dont get what the complaints are about. Many things change for an MMO in beta...this game isnt even in alpha yet so why the hostility ?

I would love for Star Trek to be a virtual world - sandbox type of MMO. It doesnt sound like it will be but I believe the devs will give us something resembling a virtual world simulator.

They mention exploration as very important which tells me combat wont be the sole focus of the game (one of the chief complaints ive seen here)

They mention having personal quarters and such on our ships and being able to decorate them...in other words - housing...a very sandbox / virtual world feature !

They mention DS9 will be in the game. This means a visit to Qaurk's bar for a nice bottle of romulan ale. Again, a social non-combat feature thats very sandboxish / virtual worldlike.

I like the direction this game is going in. I see a good game now with great potential

The only thing that really holds me back from liking LOTR was the weird classes. I could never get into them.

I never really recognized who the official tank class was... one of the classes had a helper pet npc that carried a flag around - just plain odd...i think there was an off-healing class, minstrils healing with their guitar - lame, loremaster the unofficial master of low dps and some cc....

I ended up playing the commoner class - hunter. It lessened the pain of travel and had decent dps. But to be honest it still wasnt my cup of tea. Ive never liked or played a class that used a bow for very long.

Everything else about LOTR was wonderful. The quests are great. The graphics in my op the best of any MMO to date (and that includes aoc) There are non-combat things to do like playing music and fishing. There's housing although i wish it was better implemented. The community was fantastic and a welcome change from the awful wow crowd.

I managed to get a hunter to lvl 50 and completed I think Book 12 (the one that had a nice cape reward for finishing from Elrond). I couldnt bring myself to grind any of the other classes past 18 though.

Im considering a return though because Im such a tolkien fan. Im hoping the two new classes will be the diamond Ive been looking for to play.

Any info on the new classes would be most appreciated. I understand one is going to be a caster dps class (doesnt that upset the fans who dont want cannon broken cause there was only a few wizards around ?). The other class I know nothing about

I see a lot of negative posts here and to be honest its not really warranted.

Yes many of us wanted a virtual world. Yes we hoped for guild run ships. We didnt get them.

Im okay with that because I still think Cryptic might do the Trek galaxy right. They immediately mention that exploration will be very important. They will let us discover and name planets.

To me that says the game wont be totally focused on combat. These devs just might give us a decent game !

This is as close as I get to fanboism Cryptic so I hope my beta invite is in the mail soon lol.

I am frankly sick to death of today's MMO's. They all offer the same World of Warcraft experience. Nothing more to them then mindless combat and rep / quest grinding. And whats really sad is I dont see anything changing anytime soon.

The latest MMO's in develpment all seem to focus on this formula. And its clear why, the thousand pound gorilla in the room - WoW - has all the attention.

Ive tried WoW many times and I always cancel. No offense to those playing, but I feel too smart for it.  I can see the other player - mice running around in the maze box looking for cheese. I watch them find the cheese only to see Blizz put a bigger piece of cheese somewhere else in the maze. And all the players start again.

Do these players actually enjoy running around on that silly new island Blizz added grinding more rep ? Whats the point of all that ? So they can get that necklace which will lead to more grinding ? Dont they recall the same awful grind in silithus and argent dawn that was pointless ?

Ive asked them in-game and surprisingly they do like it. Thats just strange to me, enjoying mindless repeating quests over and over for a necklace and some gold.

Then we gets devs who make games like Second Life which is the total opposite.

Cant we get a happy medium ? Cant we own a tavern and kill some stuff in between beers ? Where is the choices anymore ?

Dam I miss Star Wars Galaxies. Im tired of settling for dumbed down games like wow