quote:

---

> Hello Everyone!l
>
> I wonder if anyone knows WHY Tiggs got booted and escorted out? On one of
> the german fansite forums a guy posted a screenshot of a pm he received
> from her. Obviously he removed that pic shortly after, so I didn't get to
> read it...

quote:

---

> Reply to message from Raymond Baastat <raymond@*spamblock*baastad.net>
> (Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:19:10) about "Re: Tiggs booted":
>
>
> RB> Dirk Pfeiffer wrote:
>
>
> RB> I must have missed this. Where exactly does it say that? URL?
>
> It's all over the forums. NGE Testing Discussion, Community Relations and
> Website, just to mention the most frequented. Too lazy to seek out the url
> for them, as I am on my Handheld atm.
>
> RB> --
> RB> /ray
>
>
>
>
> Bye
> Dirk Pfeiffer <dirk@dbx501.de> Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:44:43 +0200
>
> === Posted with Qusnetsoft NewsReader 2.2.0.8

quote:

---

> Its AMAZING to watch a company self-destruct
> LOL . . . they haven't got a clue
>
> "Dirk Pfeiffer" <dirk@dbx501.de> wrote in message
> news:1131626859@dirk.dbx501.de...
>
>

quote:

---

>Copied from an earlier message (alias account), posted before Tiggs was
>sacked:
>
>For any of you that were around since this game's launch, thing back to
>November 2003. Two years ago this month SOE introduced vehicles and player
>cities to SWG. This was a very exciting time, and arguably the pinnacle of
>this game's existence.
>
>The day the player city and vehicle publish was to go live was very intense.
>There was a lot of excitement. Many of us were on the old Gorath Imperial
>IRC server talking about grand plans, wishing each other luck on getting our
>spots. Many had architects lined up to make city halls. A lot of us had our
>would-be mayors logged out right by where the politician trainer would be
>located when the server came up. A LOT of people did not go to work or
>school that day hehe.
>
>Player cities actually came to define this game early on. It gave guild's a
>sense of pride and ownership. It gave folks places to gather. Gave us
>territories to defend/assault. This gave us rise to the GCW and the massive
>PvP that ensued.
>
>But while all this was going on, there were many underlying problems that
>were creeping up on us slowly. See the game had only been out for a few
>months. People had not fully realized to what extent things could be
>crafted. We had not had many good resource spawns, and not substantial
>quantities either. Almost no crafters had any experimentation tapes, nor did
>they fully understand how the intricacies of the crafting system worked.
>
>But over the next couple of months, people realized they could make armor
>that would resist 90%+ all damage. Or that they could make MIND poison that
>would kill everyone within a 30 yard radius in three ticks. Or they could
>make buffs that would more than DOUBLE our stats.
>
>These were all items that for some reason or another were never capped
>before the game went live as they should have. This was a direct result of
>SOE's short-sightedness. They underestimated the resourcefulness of their
>player base.
>
>Combine those factors with bugs and exploits (faction bases had MANY that
>took MONTHS to patch), unbalanced classes (TKA, CM, Rifleman) and eventually
>the revelation of HOW to unlock Jedi (effectively taking a huge part of the
>player base OUT of the game as they pursued the grind) - and you had the
>begining of the decline.
>
>Before all this, the GCW was super addictive and I would say in November
>2003 the majority of players were actively involved somehow. Not sure how
>many remember the battles at Maelstrom that went on for over 8 hours. Only
>reason it ended was because people had to leave to go to work or school lol.
>The game was FUN and MUCH more addictive then. Faction meant something. We
>had a LOT less faction hopping back then because the war was in full swing.
>
>Well, the game kept deteriorating so SOE came up with the plan to fix it -
>originally called the Combat Revamp, later to be known as the Combat
>Upgrade. I was one who was privy to a LOT of the early documentation on the
>first CU. Let me first point out that the CU that did go live that you all
>call CU 1 is actually CU 2. There was another version of the CU prior to
>what you saw that IMHO was MUCH better, but for some reason or another they
>took it upon themselves to redo the CU before it even went live.
>
>But the CU 1 that I was shown was the game I wanted. It was basically the
>same game we all loved, but solved the long-standing problems that revealed
>themselves since launch. Being able to target the mind pool was no longer
>going to be an advantage for only a handful of professions - each profession
>was going to get a move to be able to target each of the three pools.
>Weapons, armor, buffs, foods & drinks were all going to be capped. DOT's
>were going to be nerfed so hard they were going to be a nuissance, but not
>make or break in combat. Mind pool was going to finally be healable. We
>still had the same graphics and toolbars - none of the cartoony stuff that I
>think really was a distraction. We also still had Jedi which arguably was
>the biggest flaw of the game.
>
>Not sure why - perhaps too much playing WoW and not focusing on their own
>unique game - but they scrapped all of CU 1 and ended up pushing out what
>you have now.
>
>But now - now we have the NGW. There are SO many things I find wrong with
>this I do not even know where to begin.
>
>First off, SWG never has been known as having a substantial amount of
>content. To be honest, I think that half the content in this game WAS the
>professions - being able to build a unique character template for YOU. Bored
>of tailor? Try droid engineer. Bored of pistoleer? Try carbineer.
>
>Now I see these nine classes folks will be pigeon-holed into and I think
>that SOE just took it's BIGGEST strength for this game and turned it into a
>weakness. Character classes in SWG will now have even less diversity than
>WoW because in WoW at least they have the talent system to offer some
>diversity within a class.
>
>Sure, this will be easier for them to balance, and easier for players
>without a clue, but it seems to me that this is a cop out and a slap in the
>face to anyone who has been loyal to SOE through it all.
>
>I am sure the NGE will be fun for a little while, but unless SOE plans on
>adding a LOT of content, the NGE will become boring FAST.
>
>Where did SOE go wrong over the past few years? Well here is a quick list of
>major issues that they either never addressed or took too long to address or
>just flat out screwed up:
>
>- Mind Pool
>Making the ONE unhealable pool explicitly targetable by only a few classes
>automatically made some classes better than others.
>
>-No Caps
>Having no upper-limit caps on DOT's, buffs, food&drinks, armor
>effectiveness, weapons, etc allowed for game-breaking items to be crafted.
>Had there been better testing in beta with MAX resources they would have
>discovered this before the game even went live.
>
>-Jedi
>Making an alpha class in an MMORPG is always going to be a failure. Who
>would NOT want to play the dominant class? Nerfing Jedi was wrong too. We
>want Jedi to be like canon and strong. SOE should have NEVER allowed player
>Jedi. To my understanding this was a HUGE internal debate before the game
>went live, with LucasArts weighing in to push Jedi. BIG mistake. Fact is the
>game had MORE paying subscribers before there were Jedi. Fact - after DOT's
>(often pointed out by Jedi as the true death of the game) the game had even
>LESS subscribers. I hardly think all those people quit because DOT's were
>nerfed Point? People got sick of Jedi, and sick of seeing more and more of
>them. Less diversity among players = less fun. When SOE devoted two huge
>publishes all to Jedi instead of fixing other long-standing issues this was
>a sign of things to come. And the original holo-grind killed off a LOT of
>the PvP we had since so many became reclusive and devoted all their time to
>grinding.
>
>-GCW bugs/exploits
>Once people discovered that you can shoot through walls of player bases from
>the inside out but not outside in things went downhill. Once people
>discovered you could abort a base countdown even while DEAD of feigning
>death it was game over. How long did it take for SOE to fix this bug? FOUR
>months. What about people being able to attack turrets from out of range?
>SIX months. It was not like these were secret tricks either. They were well
>documented on the forums. For some reason though, they were extremly slow to
>respond. Instead of spending eight hours fighting back and forth between
>cities, people just got rid of their bases and the GCW died. With it PvP
>died off in a big way.
>
>-Content
>At one point they promised us new PvE content every other patch. Well, we
>got the corvette (which was a BLAST for about 3 weeks) and the Geonosian
>cave (which was so bugged it became a favorite place for grinders) and
>eventually the DWB which was the most challenging and fun, but then it was
>not until the expansion that the game actually got additional PvE content.
>
>-Wasted Space
>Land area in SWG is immense. If you did the math and figured it out and
>compared it to any other MMORPG out there SWG has MORE explorable space than
>any other game by far. But you know what? It is USELESS. Take Talus for
>example. Big beautiful planet with NOTHING on it. We have these little
>mini-dungeons, or doodads on each planet that serve minimal to no purpose at
>all. What is their answer? In the expansions they actually have invisible
>fencing to keep you in the few areas they actually have content. Instead of
>having the whole huge area filled with stuff of use, they close off areas to
>the player. This is an area where SOE could learn a LOT from WoW where all
>the land is not only explorable, but most of it serves a purpose and/or has
>unique mobs.
>
>-Character customization
>SOE made characters so customizable that this actually becomes one of it's
>biggest weaknesses. The more unique features the game has to track, the more
>queries clients have to make to the server in order to properly render a
>toon on your screen. 20 players no problem. 50 players? Slowdown time. 200
>players? Server go kaboom. Too much load for the system to handle. Basically
>epic battles become near impossible.
>
>Thinking about all of this it seems to me that in SOE's rush to get product
>to market in the first place they dropped the ball bad, and instead of
>making things better, they constantly seem to make the wrong decisions.
>
>Stop f'ing around with focus groups, and fire the marketing suits and hire
>some good, competent developers and people with vision. Unfortunately at
>this point I think it is too late. No one trusts you anymore SOE and their
>experiences here WILL likely make them think twice about trying other SOE
>games. I know for myself I will NEVER play another SOE title.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Someone who loved what once was,
>
>--G
>
>http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/...ssage.id=909056
>
>
>"Relativity" <thel@kerssuck.com> wrote in message
>news:UXOcf.5634$QM5.1941@tornado.socal.rr.com...
>

quote:

---

>I will top post for once rather than <Snip> that which should not be
> snipped.
>
> Marvelous.Simply marvelous! Thank you!!
>
> Couldn't have said it better. Especially the part about
> underestimating their players resourcfulness! EVERY developer does
> that because they fancy themselves as unbeatable!
>
>
> On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 21:53:04 GMT, "Relativity" <thel@kerssuck.com>
> wrote:
>
>

quote:

---

>Yes, very good post. Here is a developer take on it. SWG is in the midst
>of this right now.
>
>http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?o...=1468&Itemid=35
>
>Jeff Hickman
>
>My rant is about how, as game developers, the fact that we often make
>changes to core pieces of our games after we launch. It's a critical error.
>We've made changes to our games that were core changes and, while I can't
>say they were detrimental to our game, they probably didn't achieve the
>goals we wanted them to achieve.
>

quote:

---

>As we make these games, we attract a certain type of player. They come to
>our game because of the things we put in there. The core functionality, the
>systems, the gameplay we put in, and then for whatever reason, because we
>see another game that looks really cool, that's maybe doing better than us,
>or we want to change our billing structure to make more money, or whatever
>the reason happens to be, we come out and make a systems change to our game,
>and what does it do? It alienates our current players. The people who are
>playing our game right now.
>

quote:

---

>We go out and say, ''you know what, we want more of those players, we want
>that 3.5 million from that game over there.' So instead of sticking to the
>thing that our players really love, we " So instead of sticking to the thing
>that our players really love, we start changing it. And now we're alienating
>the players playing our game, losing our subscribers."
>- Jeff Hickmanstart changing it. And now we're alienating the players
>playing our game, losing our subscribers. The 3.5 million who are over
>there playing that game, they're happy. They're playing that game already.
>We're not attracting them - or, it's very difficult to attract them. So the
>chance that you're taking as a developer making those changes is so huge.
>And you see it happen all the time. If you look at the games out there,
>there's not many big games - or small games that have not made that error.
>So, that's my rant.
>
>
><Skinner1@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:4mp7n19c5nmo6aeq02pu2emk64njus3gjq@4ax.com...
>

quote:

---

> Yes, very good post. Here is a developer take on it. SWG is in the midst
> of this right now.
>
> http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?o...=1468&Itemid=35
>
> Jeff Hickman
>
> My rant is about how, as game developers, the fact that we often make
> changes to core pieces of our games after we launch. It's a critical
> error. We've made changes to our games that were core changes and, while I
> can't say they were detrimental to our game, they probably didn't achieve
> the goals we wanted them to achieve.
>
> As we make these games, we attract a certain type of player. They come to
> our game because of the things we put in there. The core functionality,
> the systems, the gameplay we put in, and then for whatever reason, because
> we see another game that looks really cool, that's maybe doing better than
> us, or we want to change our billing structure to make more money, or
> whatever the reason happens to be, we come out and make a systems change
> to our game, and what does it do? It alienates our current players. The
> people who are playing our game right now.
>
> We go out and say, ''you know what, we want more of those players, we want
> that 3.5 million from that game over there.' So instead of sticking to
> the thing that our players really love, we " So instead of sticking to the
> thing that our players really love, we start changing it. And now we're
> alienating the players playing our game, losing our subscribers."
> - Jeff Hickmanstart changing it. And now we're alienating the players
> playing our game, losing our subscribers. The 3.5 million who are over
> there playing that game, they're happy. They're playing that game
> already. We're not attracting them - or, it's very difficult to attract
> them. So the chance that you're taking as a developer making those
> changes is so huge. And you see it happen all the time. If you look at
> the games out there, there's not many big games - or small games that have
> not made that error. So, that's my rant.
>
>
> <Skinner1@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:4mp7n19c5nmo6aeq02pu2emk64njus3gjq@4ax.com...
>
>