All Posts by Dundee

Originally posted by Obee
Right, but you're clarification came after your initial post recieved a very large negative reaction.  I admit I took the clarification as you trying to whitewash your enthusiasm.  You're continued expression of your preference for the psuedo FPS combat system makes your protest ring a bit hollow.  You thought and think it is more 'fun' than the old system.  Take your lumps for it and move on.  It comes across as you trying to weasle out of saying you were a proponent of the current combat system, especially since you have posted here that you still think it is more fun than the old system.

Originally posted by MrArchy
Until the NDA is lifted

 In the absence of substantive information rumor will rule, and given enough time to lay roots it can even be generally perceived as having "become" the truth.  You want to stop the majority of the anti-NGE (and all the rest) rhetoric?

Originally posted by Obee

Because many players liked the deves they think "up and quit" and have your blog post where you say you had to convince "The Man" that the NGE combat system was too fun not to implement that makes them hope you were fired.

 You're the only dev who worked on part of the NGE that has admitted to having a role in it (and you're blog post made it seem like you were gung ho about the NGE, wether you intended it to or not).

  Like it or not, you're currently the only dev who has painted a target on himself and you're going to take a few lumps because of it.  Maybe in the future, as more of the why and how of the NGE becomes known, you might be seen in a better light.  But since you can't actually come out give specifics about what happened, you've entered into a conversation where you're not going to be able to 'clear your name'.

Oh I have learned my lesson. I will never stick up for Raph again!

If it makes you feel any better, I don't think you're as big of a douchebag as I did before our conversation here.

I remember you from the old UO newsgroup, and actually remember interacting with you a few times on the Lake Superior server.  I am disappointed a bit by the fact that you seem to have changed from the advocate of players you were back then to more of an advocate of the developers you are now.  I understand why that has happened, you being a developer yourself now, but it does seem like you have 'forgotten your roots' as it were.

Originally posted by Dvol
I think they challenged early and let that dog lay..An no i didnt know you did UO EMU's..you did that i presume cause you also didnt agree with the changes made to that game? or am i wrong in that assumption?

Originally posted by Veiled_light

Originally posted by Dundee

Originally posted by iskareot

Yeah but Jeff you have to admit the "Once bitten twice shy" part is somewhat fair.

While "Cat" is as harsh as I am sometimes he is also serious and or being realistic in saying that there is alot of people that rightfully so will steer clear from projects involving people that did what they did to SWG.

Problem is, you don't know who did what.

Wouldn't matter if you did.

Originally posted by FikusOfAhazi
I know i sound like im angry or something, im not..just my way of seeing it. I know i dont know shit about it either. Ya need to get LA to loosen up a little on the super serial NDA so maybe some wounds could be mended. Im not even really that upset SOE tried the NGE..its just when you finally saw what it was on TC and then learned that it was for people who dont even play this game, and could plainly see the obvious failure it would be, just because of it barely being ready for pre-beta let alone a live server. Its like "you dumped us for this? Total pwnge!! Ya, hi, im one of the people that got dumped for the NGE. its a great feelin . 

Non of this is specifically pointed at you or any one person btw. And i can imagine that it does upset you to see people hatin you. But, we're basically in the same boat. It hurts us just as much to see the game you worked on for 6 years go through this. None of us wanted this. Obviously we LOVED this game and We would have loved to be swg's teams biggest fanboi's. if you guys would have given us the chance.  But, thats history now i guess.

Just sit down and think; why do these people show respect to Raph Koster, even he was also a SWG dev, but they don't like you, helios, chris cao or julio torres...

Originally posted by severius
It isn't just I that read your blog post, which isnt available anymore, as saying that you had been the champion of the action style game but,

 it was specifically stated that you called them into your space and said look at this.

They said we cant do that.  And you said yes we can, we have to, its too cool for us not to.  And for the rest of the time while it was being worked on someone was running around saying to everyone that had second thoughts that this was too cool not to do it.

 You can come around a year after said post and say no no that wasnt what you meant.

 However, since that day that it was posted, from here to the suckboards and back you quietly accepted all blame

and now you want us to believe that you are innocent?

Seriously, if it wasn't the new combat interface and "star warsy" and "iconic" action of the NGE then what was so "cool" and so much "fun" that you had to, day in and day out, convince others that you were going in the right direction.

 Or were you speaking for someone else in your blog and the "I's" were really a literary device?

What I really really want to know is the precise timeline of the events at SWG.  This is what I remember:
Buggy Launch

• I started working on JtL here. Different floor, out of the loop, etc. Wrote this already in this forum just this weekend.

Nerfs, unnerfs, double nerfs, renerfs
Jedi
jedi nerf, unnerf, renerf
BH buff, jedi nerf, development switches fully to BH Jedi
First talk of Combat Revamp
CSR's directed to say "We understand your frustration but all will be made right with the Combat Revamp"
stall
stall
stall
Combat Revamp thrown out for the Combat Upgrade (everyone is playing wow and having so much fun so we need to make SWG more like wow - Smedley paraphrased)

• JtL launched around here, I think?
• I started working on RotW, shortly thereafter.

exodus from the game
A good number of the original devs leave

• No offense, but the players never had a good sense of how many devs were on the team, let alone what "a good number" of them were. Players are overly sensitive to public-facing folk: Forum Mods, Community Mgrs, Forum-focused Producers, and so on. It's possible for team restructuring to look like dev departures to the players, even if they're the result of the opposite.
• The team was as big (and expensive) here as it would ever get.

Combat Upgrade released, people start coming back

• The number of subscribers went up, but just a little. Then they started back down.
  

New CH system
some fixes, more people coming in, E3! Capital Ship combat!!! Great promises made

• The number of subscribers was headed down.

even more people returning to the game plus a slew of new people

• The number of subscribers was headed down.

Lots of bugs left to fester (mining ship anyone? :) )
Rumors of the NGE start to surface here, rumors of the death of CH

TooW released and a CH necklace from the Cho Dun Cube!!!
Green Marine and a handful of other designers and devs up and quit

• Green Marine's departure sucked. I couldn't believe the Smuggling System was slipping away again. I vowed then to track him down and work for him one day.
  
• How come when I quit you guys all grave dance and assume I got fired, but these other devs all "up and quit"? I can't say one way or the other, of course, but what gives with the double standard, there?

NGE slammed into everyone's face
Mass exodus from the game

Where did the development of the NGE start hmmm?

 Was the CU just a ruse to get people back into the game and enjoying themselves? Was it in development alongside the CU by a small inexperienced group of devs, is that why there was the exodus of the original devs and designers?

Your statement in the previous thread about devs leaving to go to new projects as a common occurence is fundamentally flawed unless you are talking about SOE in general.  Especially in the MMO business a good number of those departures are because of people high up that force devs to abandon their vision.  Richard Garriott and Starr Long and those folks didnt leave EA because they were bored of the Ultima franchise,

Originally posted by iskareot

Yeah but Jeff you have to admit the "Once bitten twice shy" part is somewhat fair.

While "Cat" is as harsh as I am sometimes he is also serious and or being realistic in saying that there is alot of people that rightfully so will steer clear from projects involving people that did what they did to SWG.

Originally posted by Wildcat84

So you deny that SWG was mismanaged when you guys abandoned two whole game systems in less than 8 months?

Between 4/26/05 and 11/15/05 SWG players had the Pre-CU, the CU, and the NGE systems.

Originally posted by Wildcat84

Freeman, you are starting to make me wonder about your sanity. Vladimir Putin has even less to do with SWG than George Lucas does.

But I've named all that DID make the NGE decision.

All we want is our game back. No more, no less. Give us our game back and SOE turns some of their most vocal critics into supporters. Myself among them.

And I think that until that happens, all the people I named need to be tracked, and their games blacklisted.

Yes, the Cabal maintains a blacklist. Heliass becoming the lead designer of the DC Comics MMO, for example. Should ANYONE even consider playing that game when he would probably post something to the forum as dumb as:

"What, you just sat there and kissed Lois Lane, and it was fun?!!!"

Originally posted by Shayde

Misinformed?

You yourself said you were the cheerleader for the nge. You said that you kept telling the powers that be that "we can do this".

Yet you claim you were innocent of all this. That you only worked on the new-player portion.

 That's clearly bullshit. You can't design a whole INTRODUCTION TO THE GAME without knowing the new system that it was being written for. The "NPE" as you call it was SPECIFICALLY designed for the 9 professions, not 32. Don't smokescreen us by hinting that those would be the starting professions and we'd move to the 32 from there.. that's bullshit. Jedi, BH, Spy, and Commando are CLEARLY elite classes.

Not only that, but the tutorial is CLEARLY made for the shitty 3PS shooter crap the nge is all about.

The people who made the decisions.. from the top and even down to the designers are all culpable.

There was NO WAY that any thinking reasonable person at $OE could ever think that the nge was going to go over any better than the Hindenburg. They knew it from the reaction of the fans from the INSTANT it was on test. Every day the online poll results were 80% "This sucks, don't do it". There were online petitions of over 100k signatures of verified players. The forums were afire with people BEGGING that the nge would never happen.

Did you listen?

Did anyone listen? No.

So now you're here trying to convince us that you had nothing to do with it.  Really?

I'm sorry. $OE's theory of saying something enough it becomes truth doesn't work outside their ivory towers.

Originally posted by Dvol

I'm not a "you guys" there anymore, but it seems to me that's the one thing they cannot do.

Just holding the lawyers off the emu project seems about the best they can do for you there.

Um holding them off? Time will tell i suppose either way it states how strong the community feels about the old game.care to explain this comment?

You're over-personalizing.not really when you love something that has been taken away no matter how hard you tried to prevent it is very personal..Game or no game people invested lots of time and money in this and feel cheated..

Originally posted by Wildcat84

The SWG saga has been a years long tale of extreme gross mismanagement. Everyone in any position of responsibility since at least 2004 on should never be put in such a position again.

SWG has been through 3 almost completely different iterations, and dozens of revamps. The sub number falls after each revamp.

What has largely remained intact?

Management.

Until recently, most of the senior devs have been the same ones since at least back to 2004, though many of the rats have left the ship since the NGE, including Heliass.

But what HAS remained constant is Smed, Torres, and McDaniel. Those three have been in senior management since the beginning.

No one who was in any way responsible for the NGE should have ANYONE's confidence in any game or any project they end up in. Smed, Torres, Freeman, Pall, Heliass, the whole bunch.

They all should be blacklisted along with any game they touch. I certainly won't buy anything those people are involved with. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Originally posted by plong

Just out of morbid curiosity, could I ask why you have spent so much time on this rather hostile forum?  If it is any consolation, I used to think of you right up there with dirty baby diapers however after reading between the lines I'm beginning to  think what happened to SWG is more due to gross mismanagement than anything else.