Another week, another rant!

Well I still can't get into Neocron, while I had no plans to resubscribe anyway it would have been nice to have spent alittle more than 2 evenings messing around with it. I've posted about my connection problems in the official forums but haven't had any decent suggestions. I would email their tech support but I've already got them on my old character transfer ticket (which I suspect they won't get around to doing until the free trial expires) and I probably won't get any decent help out of them anyway (since it appears to be a problem at my end and not theirs - most games support is crap when it comes to things like that). The odd part is that it seems to work fine on my old dial up connection which leads me to suspect it's either my firewall or my broadband. Thing is neither of these have changed and nothing else has stopped working. The more I think about it however the more it occurs to me that all the crashes I reported in my previous blog were a product of the same problem (it just got alot worse thats all!)

Whats worse is that I really could have done with getting into Neocron to give me something to do. I'm kinda burned out on EQ2 monster bashing (and tradeskills are just as much or a grind) which is not a good sign when you're only level 23, and can't find a decent reason to play anything else I'm subscribed to right now (which would be Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies and the free Anarchy Online account I've barely touched since I opened it). I'll admit I've got a desire to play Eve again but I know it'll be just like last time and once I get in, realise all I can really do is mine or low level 'rat hunt (unless I eBay credits or items) I'll have just wasted a months sub on an evenings fooling around nostalgia trip - I'd get another trial account except I'll be able to do even less with that!

I suppose I really ought to sort out a Face of Mankind login since I downloaded and installed the bloody thing, otherwise the beta will be over and it'll all have been a waste of time.

Theres another part of me that wants to play Quake 4, I did a couple of levels last week when my server was down for the evening (through no fault but my own) and it was cool. But theres always this thing when I play offline games where I'm sat there thinking that I really ought to be online since I playing a monthly sub and not using it.....

SWG continues to crash and burn and the patch notes just seem to make a bad situation worse (harvester nerf followed by a species ability nerf), some of you may have noticed that Jeff has removed the blog entry that my first ever blog linked to (and not posted a new one in quite some time). Guess he's decided to get out of that particular kitchen (seriously dude, you killed the game for thousands of people (me included), did you not expect there to be a backlash?)

Neocron Evolution 2.1

Well first impressions weren't good. My first 30 mins of play were filled with bugs that have existed since the beginning of Neocron 1 retail (which is about 3 years ago).

I started with the bug where your username/password is just ignored the first time around and you are dumped back at the login prompt, then I got stuck in a closing door in the new Zoo. I quit out but couldn't get back in because of the 'Proxy error' (where you have to wait for the game to realise you have disconnected - even though you quit correctly rather than crash!).

Then I had the problem where you login, can't move and have no money or equipment (basically a blank character) and also while trying to get back in I got a similar bug where you inherit (termporarily) someone elses gear. I also encoutered a couple of the infamous 'syncronising errors while zoning (you get stuck zoning and the server kicks you out of the game after the timeout period for zone changes expires).

All this was while playing it on my WinME box (say what you will about WinME - Neocron always ran more reliably under ME than it did under XP - don't ask me why).

However all those things aside I did get a hour or so to check out the new patch and heres what I think.

The new graphics are a nice touch, I'm using a patched client (as opposed to the new full client) so it's not as good apparently, and most of the improvements are supposed to be in the wastelands, which unfortunately I didn't have time to check out.

They have made some nice changes to Neocron city though. Once of the nice things about the Dome of York when it was introduced was that it had what are best described as newbie levelling zones which were small, self contained areas set on the outskirts of the city. Using the city as a backdrop the player got a good idea of how big the city was actually supposed to be.

The newbie zones in Neocron city were however all underground (either sewers or basements) and it was only in the apartment zones that you got any idea how big the city was supposed to be. Well some of these underground zones have now been removed (as far as I can see) and new zones added to the 'edge' of the city in the same was as the Dome has.

One of my personal gripes about the original game was that there was so much unused potential. I suspect this was because the developers ran out of time/resource/ideas when filling in all the space that had been created. For example in the military base there is a secret hidden section referred to by the players as the BYB (big yellow ball - so called because in there is a big yellow ball!). Some of these 'empty' areas appear to have been 'fixed' in the new patch, for example the Zoo is now finally open. This was originally the Neocron bank which was never needed due to all the stock exchange functions being added to all the terminals scattered around the city. The Conference centre now has a function as well (if the playerbase is anything like I remember few will use this though which is a shame) however at the same time new wasted areas have been added in the same way as the newbie zones (theres a 'machine room' in Pepper Park I think which appears to serve no function whatsoever). It's possible that these might be used in some of the new missions that have been added (I havent found any yet) but on the surface it seems like another waste which is a shame.

The faction system has undergone some change (and more changes are in the pipeline I believe). Personally I didn't really have a problem with the Neocron 1 system (but then I didn't play to PvP) and the only problem I had with the Neocron 2 system was the devolution into what was basically a 'red vs. blue' system. The new system seems to be ok on paper but as I said before I never played to PvP.

My other gripes are that some of the voice-overs in game are stiill wrong (some dating back to release) and that they haven't re-enabled mouse look while on the subway (or the hovercabs) which makes it a pain to see what subway station you have arrived at (if you weren't paying attention) or get to see your current zone from the air while in a hover cab.

I'm not able to test any clan [guild] related functions because my character is too poor (and has been since he got nerfed in the Neocron 2 character transfer) but I'd imagine that the LE [law enforcer] chip (which keeps you safe from PvP) still prevents you from forming a clan. While I understand why the developers have done it this way (clans are fundamental to PvP fights over the wasteland bases, non-PvP clans would require additional coding to prevent those clans from claiming a facility) it's a serious blow to role playing in a game with a huge potential for it, unfortunately the game is PvP-biased and the attracted/remaining playerbase reflects this, thus the developers support their core customers.

In summary Neocron Evolution 2.1 is certainly not enough to get me to play again, but other than failing to address basic client stability issues that have existed since lauch being a significant black mark against the developer for returning players, theres little to complain about in terms of whats changed. The client issues may however be addressed in the new Evo 2.1 client and I hope to have the time during my 14 days free period to try this out.

I guess I should put something up?

Where to start though?... Well the SWG situation hasn't improved. Mr. Smedly (head of SOE himself) made his second and third visit to the official forums ever (his first was during the fallout after the CU went live so you know _somethings_ up!) usual PR blather with little actual content. I'll include links to his post in a moment.

While I'm on the SWG bandwagon (again) heres a blog that I stumbled across recently http://olebaldangus.blogspot.com/ now this guy is having a blast with the SWG NGE and kudos to him for that, but I just find his take on it alittle...shallow, certainly for a gamer who is no console kiddie by all appearences. Now I like to kick back and just have a blast as much as the next 30-something-year-old but I wouldn't choose to do it in a MMORPG (usually Planetside for me). Unfortunately it seems that this 'mentality' is exactly what SOE want from their new playerbase (because they sure as hell aint getting it from the old one!)

Anyway here is Smed's second ever post http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swggpdiscussion&message.id=96353

and his third http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swggpdiscussion&message.id=102469#M102469

for and, for basis of comparison here is his first (compare it to his second) http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=generalgame&message.id=85#M85

Smeds added two further posts in existing threads, neither adds anything worthy of note. Unfortunately I fear the new 'listening side of SOE' is going to be too little too late (or simply a PR excersize)

To finish up todays SWG coverage, over the weekend my CL1 Trader completed two of the three Corvette missions (not the assasin one) solo with ease. For this I have to show two more badges, two AV-21 schematics (but no powerplanet grrr!) and two hours of my life I can't use for anything else because it was neither a fun nor exciting use of my time (just a case of I can so I will I'm afraid.

Now a first for this blog, something other than SWG!!!!!

Just over a year after releasing 'Neocron 2' Reakktor announce 'Neocron Evolution 2.1'.
Basically this is a huge update to the game that should make it look alittle more.....modern (it seems to be largely a graphics engine update).

I have to admit to having a soft spot for Neocron, its a small company MMORPG and very different to any other sci-fi MMORPG available currently (Face of Mankind looks kinda similar but is still in beta) as it's a cyberpunk genre. The biggest problem with Neocron was that it had largely unrestricted PvP and as such attracted the kind of players you didn't want to play with (powerlevelling gankers basically) I like a bit of PvP as much as the next guy I just prefer to have a reasonable chance of winning and not have my fate sealed by some kid who spends all his spare time powerlevelling his character just to get his kicks from killing guys loads lower than him.

The potential for roleplay in Neocron was huge and....completely wasted. This new patch should give me a 14 day trial on my existing account but I doubt very much that I'll go back to playing the game full time, despite the recent addition of a 'hardcore' (read: even more PvP than usual) server because the transition of my characters from Neocron 1 to Neocron 2 lost me too much than I care to replace (which reminds me I wonder if they fixed my character transfer problem...... well at least thats something I can check during the 14 days....)

So who is the game for anyway?

Yes, I'm talking about SWG again (sorry). I'll qualify my opening comment later, but first I thought I'd share this gem of a post I found yesterday while surfing the angry forum (the official SWG forum that is):

DarthMarak wrote:
I really don't mean this as a flame, and am not trying to incite anything but....I honestly think that removing traders and crafting, effectively from the game is the best decision they ever made. I said back in early beta that basing a star wars game around crafting was absolutely retarded and would never work, and it didn't. Crafting has no place in SWG, never has never will. The game should have been about action and cinematic combat and high adventure, not crafting garbage over and over.Adventuring should be the number one way of advancement in a star wars game and to motivate adventurers you need loot, not crafting crap.Seriously if there's one thing i applaud the devs for, it's making crafting useless.

Crafting was the number one reason i cancelled my account the first time and it's effective removal is the main reason i reactivated it. I want loot to reward my hunting not some garbage i have to give to some other player to maybe make me something.

and suddenly everything starts to make sense, _this_ would appear to be the exact player that SOE/LA are trying to appeal to (either that or a member of this legendary 'focus group' they keep referring to). Assuming I'm right I have the following points to make about this.

1. Why isn't this player playing Battlefront already [actually he probably is], and why does he (and all those like him) want [essentially] another game exactly like Battlefront? More to the point why are you happy to give it to him? Battlefront = no monthly fee, SWG = monthly fee - won't take the kiddies long to work that one out!

In other words why does an existing game [SWG] have to be (for want of a better phrase) sacrificed to make a clone of something thats already out there (lets be fair, other than the persistant part the gameplay [for this guy] is just the same)?

2. This guy says he quit because of crafting! Actually what he meant to say was that he quit because his hard work rewarded him [most of the time] with something he couldn't use until he went and found another player (a crafter) to make it into something he could use (and pay the crafter for his services).

So either this guy begrudges crafters because they 'make money for doing nothing' or he really isnt interested in playing with other real people (beyond being able to defeat them and prove how much more 'skilled' and 'uber' he is).

Interestingly the Rage of the Wookies (ROTW) expansion included [or should that be 'introduced'] ready to use loot - have to ask why didn't this player return at that point?

3. Is the level of intollerance displayed by this guy acceptable and something a developer wants to encourage (i.e. attract more of)? We have here a guy that isn't interested in player interaction (beyond blowing peoples brains out) places no value on playstyles other than his own and is prepared to quit over the slightest thing (i.e. this game has crafters!). Hardly an indication this guy will 'play nice with others' or is going to be a loyal customer! Again everything this player wants is provided by the Battlefront series of games.

4. So who is the game for anyway? Returning to my opening statement, who was/is SWG aimed at anyway? On release it had the unique benefit of appealing to multiple playstyles. No particular playstyle was [initially] favoured (granted there were balance issues) and non-combat professions had just as much game play as anyone else. Since ROTW we have seen a decline in the non-combat aspects of the game and I genuinely believe this to be because that element of the community is numerically smaller in number and this doesn't account for as much of the incoming SWG generates as the combat community - thus SOE will keep the combat community happy at the expense of the non-combat community in order to appease, and therefore retain, a larger % of the playerbase (and possibly attract more of the same). I can't really argue with the business logic in this, but business logic fails to take certain factors into account (like how much bad press pissed off people can generate!)

The NGE represents (up to this point) the ultimate example of the above (and to steal a line from Episode 3 'a failure to listen [to the existing players]'). Crafters are, basically, no longer required. Combat classes will recieve 'level up' rewards for their use in addition to the looted items they find, no items will decay (removing any repair or replacement sales) and I wonder how long it will be before we see NPC vendors for things such as bounty hunter droids (which existed when the game was originally release and were removed [finally] after much complaining by the Droid Engineer community).

SOE of course will be able to justify the introduction of NPC vendors after the complaints from the combat community about not being able to obtain x/y/z reach critical mass. The reason for the lack of supply will of course be the fact that the crafting community has been decimated by the NGE because the new Trader class does not offer anything close to as much gameplay (read: content) now as a combat class does (mainly because it can't be combined with a combat class anymore) but anyone who points this out will get lost in a sea of annoyed combat players.

Crafters will therefore either quit SWG (since combat holds less to zero appeal for them) or will have respec'd to a combat class simply to get more gameplay (value for money). It remains to be seen how long any remaining crafters stick at it given that they probably no longer have the combination of crafting skill they used to have, and that their sales will diminish due to the lack of no decay.

What will be interesting is how many crafters are playing to stick it out until the second character slot goes live (I'll save my thoughts on this for another time) so that they can start a combat character. Since I'm on station access (and therefore technically can't quit SWG) I expect that's what I'll do if I bother to play SWG again.

For those of you who think I'm reading too much into all of this I offer the following two extracts from SOE staff. The first is from the recent Dev Chat:

[17:13] *Mankind00* Will crafted goods come back to the stage where they compare to loot & rewards in the future of the game? At the moment, it seems they are no where near this.
[17:15] Long term, crafting items will be comparable to some loot items. They will also represent a more convenient method of obtaining specific items for adventuring.

The second was the reply to the question (paraphrased) 'Why has no one from SOE posted on the Trader forums [during testing and since release] regarding our questions/problems':

It's not [that we] refuse to respond, rather it's we have no answers yet. When we have answers, we will post them.
Thanks.
Brenlo BixiebopperDirector,
Global Community Relations - SOE

Ok, let me check if I have this right..... You made a decision to change the gameplay for 100% of crafters several months ago, this thing was in internal testing for how long? (actually it would not surprise me if you didn't test the NGE [from a crafters perspective] at all!) You stuck it on the Test Server, created a Trader Test forum and had players reporting issues at least a week before it went live....... but you don't have any answers to the Traders questions!!!!!!!

Actually let me rephrase that for you because I understand it perfectly. You guys know _exactly_ whats going on and whats planned but you know the players will react badly and the last thing you want to do right now is give the community another thing to be unhappy about (althought that Starter Pack item was a nice surprise!) so the PR guys have told you to keep your mouths shut - sound about right?



Lets go full circle then shall we? Who is the game for SOE? Is it for the players that originally purchased it and stuck with it through the ups and downs and have remained loyal to SWG & SOE? Or is it for the players who possibly played it on release, didn't give it much of a chance, didn't come back after the CU (or maybe left because of it) and as such probably has a much larger chance of up and leaving again the minute they find something they still don't like (and lets make no mistake here, only the new character experience has changes, and word is after level 30 the new 'Star Warsyness' vanishes because the new quests run out) or you screw them over as you have done to existing players previously.

Or are you simply prepared to alienate the existing players (because even if they like the NGE, the quality of this release alone is something everyone should be unhappy about) in a gamble that you can attract a greater number of players that have never even tried SWG? Honestly where on earth do you think these players are going to come from?......

Well this just gets better and better

I spent an hour or so on SWG this evening trying to get a more reasoned view of the NGE. Unfortunately I just keep finding things that make it worse (I'll try and keep this short, it's late and I need some sleep)

GUI - I'll restate how horrible this is, it _still_ doesn't remember where you left each window and whats worse is there are some new bugs to deal with (such as the one where closing an item description on a vendor/bazaar closes the whole vendor/bazaar window!)

Vet rewards - It would appear that Traders and Entertainers don't get the 'Elder' titles that everyone else gets, just more reason to believe the devs really don't give a damn about these elements of the community (while I'm on the subject of Entertainers how come my one has a CL of 2 but my Trader only has a CL of 1?!).

On a similar subject it would appear that, due to SOE's wonderful [lack of] QA on this patch, no one who logged in [and therefore respec'd] an existing character in yesterday (i.e. me, both accounts, all characters) got any of the items they would have got during levelling up (it's now like EQ2 where you get given items at certain 'levels' or skill boxes in SWG). Rather than issue these items out retrospectively they expect players to use 2 of the 10 respecs to move to a different profession and then back to the original one to gain the items (this I could accept if they increased the respec's by 2 to compensate) once a hotfix goes live (it still hasn't and due to even more [lack of] communications from SOE people have already used 2 respecs trying to get these items.

While I'm talking about respecs, I was thinking today that actually 10 respecs (one for each new profession and a final one to chose that you want to stay as) isn't enough to try all the new professions because it would only enable you to try 1 of the Trader varients (there are 4), see my earlier comments about devs and their [lack of] concern for the non-combat players.

I posted on the official SWG forums a few times before this abortion went live that everyone would be Jedi now (usually to be met with replies of 'and how is that different to what we have now?!') well unsurprisingly I was right. Everywhere I go all I see is Elder and respec Jedi either dueling or arguing about who 'earned' it. I know there were alot of Jedi pre-NGE but the situation is far worse now (mainly because they are everywhere and not just on the high end planets like they used to be)

What was interesting though was the notable decline in players online tonight compared to last night, obviously it's a little early to judge if this is a trend but the signs don't look good for masses of returning players (it looks like they came, they saw, they [still] didn't like and they left again, and took a bunch of previously happy players with them)

What is also noticible is the lag! Last night I put it down to the fact that loads of people were online (Eisley was always laggy on release but there were lots more people back then and I had a lower spec PC). Tonight however there were many less people and I still had a second or 2 delay doing stuff in my PA hall with no one else around! I'm no expert on this kind of thing but my guess is either the servers aren't happy about the additional load this patch probably brought or the client isn't (or a combination of the 2).

Again it's too early to say for sure but it would appear that the crafting community has either largely quit, is refusing to craft in protest or is busy being other classes (either on trial or for good). I don't remember the last time I saw the bazaar this empty and it's having a knock on effect because combat players are having trouble locating equipment they can now use (the most common request being either weapons or resources to construct lightsabers). Obviously the aforementioned lack of items for the respec'd professions hasn't helped here.

At least they got the in-game knowledgebase back on line so players can, once again, submit in game support tickets - I put mine in with my requests for this that and the other, in my mind the request is totally reasonable, experience tells me I'll get some brush off reply from a CSR. Depending on how I feel at the time I might kick up about it, not that this has done me any good in the past. To date I have only ever found 1 member of SOE support staff who could do his job properly and that is Joel (is that Joe L or Joel?) from Planetside then subsequently MXO - let me qualify that, with 10 years experience in the IT support arena I think I have a reasonably good idea about this! All I can say is that SOE support QA is as non-existant as their coding QA!

Now I never thought I'd say this but I find myself wanting SWG to fail, it's quite possible that I'm being selfish in that, if it's no longer a game I want to play, then I'd be happiest if it went under so all the people that it's now supposed to cater to can't play it either. I guess an element of this is the fact that, in every MMORPG bar none I have played the devs cater to the combat players first, foremost and almost exclusively (and that SWG used to be the only one that didn't) but I'm guessing a large part is that the SWG team at SOE has screwed us over so much and so often they don't deserve to have the title to work on (which I suppose ultimately means I'd like them all to lose their jobs). Unfortunately I'd imagine the ones actually responsible for this mess are some high up suits in either Lucas or SOE and wouldn't catch much if any fall out from SWG's failure and the poor grunts at the bottom of the ladder would be the ones looking for a new job.

Sound a bit harsh? Probably but then the CU and NGE were harsh on the player, karma is a bitch and all the cries of 'it's just a game' won't change the fact that we feel cheated, betrayed and had 2.5 years labour of love flushed down the bog! Not that I want SOE to go under (unlikely anyway unless Lucas has some big penalty clause or something) because I'm happily playing EQ2 and Planetside still.

I guess this is why I find myself strangely drawn to any negative cover of the NGE (which isn't particularly hard to find). The realist in me however thinks that SWG will limp along, at least until the PS3 comes out (which appears to be the underlying goal of the NGE) at which point SWG will probably become just like EQOA is now..........deserted.

The SWG NGE is here......

...and it's not good :-(

It's late, I'm tired so I'll try and keep this short and sweet (yeah right!).

Short version: I'm gutted

I'm gutted because it's as bad as everyone said it was and therefore as bad as I expected. I can't use my armour anymore (and it's look like, as a Trader, I can't use _any_ armour anymore) and I'm using the worst gun in the game (CDEF) and have no idea if I can use anything better.

On the one hand since the movement controls are the same as EQ2 now it's less confusing switching between the two games, on the other hand the combat is more of a pain now because you have to keep the pointer on the target (which usually moves around likes it's on drugs or something) and keep the mouse button held down - I don't really see how this is more 'exciting' or whatever than the old system.

The new run speed is too quick (is this how they intend to pass off the game as 'fast paced'? Simply by increasing your movement speed!).

The new GUI is just horrible. I don't understand the skill window (once I found it) at all (so which skill do I have and how much XP do I have and still need for the next skill?) and the chat interface is a step back (just like EQ2 unfortunately) certainly not intuitive (why did they feel the need to change the existing key mapping for crying out loud!) - alot of this just seems to be change for changes sake! Radials have gone from the mouse button (took ages to find out that they are now on the ~ key) and while there is a new downloadble manual (apparently) there wasn't a link to it in the launcher (come to think of it there wasn't _anything_ in the launcher). I also note that the in-game knowledgebase is empty, a curious by-product of this is that you can't open an in-game support ticket - the cynic in me suspects this was intentional!)

The best part of the NGE however is the space element - mainly because the don't seem the have changed anything in that!

The worst part is that, because I'm on Station Access and play other SOE games I can't even quit and vote with my feet, but that refund for ToOW is looking more tempting now.

Not all of my friends have got in game yet, but those that have don't like it either, and theres a visible moderator presence on the official forums trying to stop the hordes of negative posts (which they didn't bother to police prior to release....) overwhelming the boards (doesn't look good for the new players they hope to attract)

But, as I predicted, the number of Jedi has notably increased......

Probably more in the coming days, if I can be bothered to give it another chance (first impressions and all that, and they certainly weren't good)

More SWG stuff I'm afraid

Some questions it would appear do get answered sooner or later.

SOE have announced a refund option for the ToOW expansion. So either this is goodwill/damage control excersize or there was a real risk of legal repercussions - personally my experience with SOE leads me to believe its the latter, but then again I'm biased. I'll have to wait and see how [un]playable the game/my character is after the Tuesday patch before I decide if I want the refund or not....

It would appear that Tiggs (Community relations person mentioned in the pervious entry) was sacked. I found her Blog here http://www.livejournal.com/users/ladytiggs/312.html and while she stops short of actually saying this it certainly looks like they fired her. Possibly because her last post, which I can find no trace of on the forum, contained something SOE didn't want public. Whether Tiggs knew this when she posted it is another question completely.

The wife, friends and SWG (no surprise there!)

Well the big, and unwanted, surprise today was the wife going for her routine midwife appointment, only to get referred to the hospital for 24 hours observation for high blood pressure. Unfortunately the fact that this has started so early on could spell trouble in the long run - time to put our trust in the medical professionals I guess. I spent some time with Mrs. Rid tonight, needless to say she'd rather be at home (but wasn't complaining about the not going to work bit!).

As I mentioned in an earlier post (I think) Thursday is usually 'sad old gits come round to mine to play Warhammer or Role Play' night however with Xmas fast on the way Phil has to work (he's in retail) and Darren has to pick his wife up from an antenatal class (god we are getting old!) so I called it off this week (just as well too what with my aforementioned hospital business). I swear we are never going to get this D&D adventure done (and they are only level 1 for crying out loud!).

Not much else is new, still fearing next Tuesday when the SWG NGE supposedly goes live (I hope they cancel but I doubt they will). The official forums are still 99% complaints (and with good reason) and it appears SOE can only make things worse. I know you're probably bored sick of all this SWG stuff, I expect come the end of next week it'll all be done and dusted (one way or another) and I'll start ranting about speed cameras instead (ask anyone who knows me!).

Tiggs the community relations person is no longer working for SOE (did she fall or was she pushed?) http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=communityrelations&message.id=15830

SOE have announced that [at some unspecified point in the future] everyone will get 2 character slots (presumably per server) to satisfy those people complaining that the players who unlocked Jedi in time (i.e. before the NGE) had an unfair advantage. Unfortunately this has simply angered the Jedi players who worked hard for that extra slot and will almost certainly kill off what little player economy the game has left once all the crafting professions are consolidated, decay is removed and pretty much all the content is combat based. This will be because everyone will probably use the second slot for a Trader mule character! Not to mention that fact that it simply encourages more people to create a Jedi character if their main character isn't already one (hell thats what I'd do!).

Finally it became apparent that yesterday everyone who didn't already have the Jump To Lightspeed (JTL) expansion got given it for free (because it would seem that the NGE requires JTL just to get through the tutorial) this has angered players who paid for the expansion (a little over a year ago now - I beta'd it while on my honeymoon believe it or not! Not all the time mind you....) personally I'm not bothered about this but I can understand why people are (especially in light of all the other issues going on with SWG right now). http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Announcements&message.id=751

Theres so many bad vibes over this NGE for multiple reasons how good it turns out to be is almost a moot point now.

Lots of people (on the SWG boards that is) linking to the following pages:

http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/11/10/1559208.shtml?tid=101&tid=209&tid=11
Which begs the question, why is the head of SOE taking questions on Slashdot but not even posting on his own forums?

Are these developers at a recent conference referring to the NGE?
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1468&Itemid=35

As an aside (for those still reading) I did log into SWG on Tuesday, despite having not played (seriously) for a while, it was fun (mainly because grouping with Bruce's Jedi was making things easy for me), I fear I will truly miss this game.....

Uneventful day

Well what an uneventful day today was (although the Nokia N-gage I got off eBay turned up so I got a new toy to play with, guess it's time to find out why I bought it....). Came home just before lunch for two reasons, first is because I wasn't feeling too great (which normally wouldn't have warranted me coming home) the second was I have a report to finish up which I'm having a hard time getting though it mainly because of the fact I don't feel great. The idea is at home I don't have all the other office stuff going on around me so hopefully I can get some work done......

Being a Tuesday, tonight is 'lads online gaming night' (whereas Thursday is 'lads old-style wargame or roleplay gaming night') but this week we're not sure what we're going to play. Recently we've all been playing Planetside (one of the few games that doesnt require all of us online all at the same time to actually get into something that will take us through the whole evening) but two of the guys still have some catching up on EQ2 to do before we can all group together and theres a part of me that wants to log into SWG and get a quest done before the NGE hits and they totally gimp me so that I can't do any quests involving combat ever again. On the other side of the coin if it (the NGE) is that bad and I end up quitting there won't have been any point doing the quest and I'll have wasted my time!

Ding Level 1! (or 'Welcome to my blog')

So here I am with my very own blog - not really sure what I'm going to do with it at this point so it'll come as much as a suprise to me as it will to the reader

So why did I create this blog? Well, I was browsing the Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) forum over at www.mmorpg.com trying to gauge the reaction to the 'new game experience' (NGE) that Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) have just announced and I found a post that included a link to this blog http://mythical.blogspot.com/2005/11/shenanigans.html by one of the SWG developers. Since I was signing up to comment on that blog (I have the courage to stand by my opinion and didn't want to post anonymously) I figured I may as well get my own blog while I was at it.

For those that are interested I'm gutted with the announcement for SWG because it sounds like everything I liked about that game is being thrown out in favour of making it a carbon copy of pretty much every other MMORPG out there (just set in the Star Wars universe) and while I felt the same way about the previous Combat Upgrade (CU) and kept playing after it went live its far to say that I didn't play anywhere near as much after that went live as I did previously, I fear this will be the straw that breaks the camels back and, judging by the reaction of the players on most of the forums I've read, I'm not alone.

I could go on for hours about this, but no amount of reasoned argument is likely (going on my past experience with SOE and SWG) to make any difference at this point and I'm getting too old to be getting all het up about a game (not like I was several year back when I was playing Anarchy Online). The only thing that does bug me is that, as a Station Access subscriber, I wont be able to register my displeasure with SOE by cancelling as I still play 3 of their other games under that subscription.