Dredging up the past - the Star Wars Galaxies NGE re-examined
by Michael Zenke 
Jun 16th 2008 at 4:30PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, Culture, Star Wars Galaxies
One of the developers involved in that project, Dan Rubenfield, has been been getting back into blogging recently after a period of quiet. His recent posts have been very confrontational, "calling out" MMO developers and offering some harsh words for players that dislike RMT practices. One of his most recent posts has caused a lot of eyebrows to raise, as he takes on the Star Wars Galaxies NGE in the post "In which I try to speak honestly about History." As you might imagine, reaction has been strong across the board. Read on after the cut for full details.
The basic jist of Rubenfield's post is that the change was the best decision they could make at the time, given the people and circumstances. He attempts to dispell a few myths about the process, and attempts to answer critics who (to this day) are very harsh on the game, developer motives, etc. Possibly most interesting is the developer's response to the most frequent player complaint. At the time, players were given almost no notice of the upcoming changes before they were pushed to the live servers. Only two weeks passed between the announcement/release of the code to the test servers and the new game concept going live on the actual player servers. On top of this, the company had just released an expansion to the game under the 'old' concept, a pack tying in with the Star Wars prequel movies entitled Trials of Obi-Wan.
On this, Rubenfield says, "We didn't notify anyone about the change until 2 weeks before launch because until 2 weeks before launch we hadn't made a decision. You basically found out when we found out. We launched, the marketing push failed, and we lost subscribers. It was a misread at an organizational level. Design, Marketing, Production, Community. You name it."
He concludes, "We made mistakes. We made a LOT of mistakes. We crunched, we argued, we fired people, we hired people. But we f$#king launched a goddamned game. We launched a SECOND succesful MMO (post-uo). We made a f%#king amazing space game using the same f#$king game engine, integrated action combat, interior spaceships and in 9 MO%#%#@ING MONTHS, all while running a successful, cash positive product ... I am proud of the work that we did, even if I am torn about the end product."
The most direct response to the post comes straight from Scott "Lum" Jennings, writer at the Broken Toys blog. He systematically tears apart Rubenfield's post, with the most vituperative statements coming in response to the basic idea of the game. Says Jennings, "At some point someone - your producer, probably, that being his job and all - should have sat everyone down and said "you. can't. do. that." Those 200,000 customers - customers - you blithely dismiss as "dregs" and "weirdos" - are paying your salary. You can't just blow them off for the mythical millions of people looking for a better game."
Other thoughtful responses come in the form of comments to this Zen of Design post, and a short posting at the Hardcore Casual blog. A less ... considered ... response comes from Jeff Freeman, who also worked on the NGE, and to whom we'll give the last word.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
RogueJedi86 said on 7:18PM 6-16-2008
You gave the wrong expansion name. It was "Trials of Obi-Wan" that launched with the NGE, not "Rage of the Wookiees".
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RogueJedi86 said on 7:20PM 6-16-2008
Though for your credit, "Rage of the Wookiees" launched with/around the time of the previous game changer, the Combat Upgrade(CU), in May'2005.
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Michael Zenke said on 7:52PM 6-16-2008
Fixed. Thanks, RogueJedi86. Man, my mmo-fu is weak today.
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mirilene said on 8:43PM 6-16-2008
This guy still doesnt get it. 200 people all too busy being caught up in whether or not they could do something that they didnt stop to think about if they SHOULD.
The only thing the NGE got right was the opening jailbreak with Han Solo, the millenium falcon and tansari station, which actually managed to bridge ground and space with iconic characters and room to grow into your own story. Everything the game was ALWAYS missing, no matter what CURB, CU, NGE or vanilla SWG you're talking about.
SWG is going to go down in gaming history as the ultimate cautionary tale for both developers, publishers and consumers.
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csavarda said on 4:00AM 6-17-2008
You know I fully expected to read that and end up getting ticked off at another developer that just doesn't get it. But I have to say I really appreciate the honesty and can't bear any ill-will towards this guy. I say this as a SWG vet who played from Day 1 until 2005, it's nice to finally hear someone say "we screwed up and ruined your game, sry bout that."
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Boocher said on 10:37AM 6-17-2008
Except, he didn't so much say "sorry" as he blamed other departments for the failure. Kind of a difference.
csavarda said on 4:37PM 6-17-2008
@Boocher, no reply button beneath your post for some reason...
True he didn't outright say "sorry," and he seems to still be in denial about how cheaply hacked-up and poorly implemented the changes were. But if he still needs to lie to himself and think that he made positive changes to the game to protect his obviously huge ego that's fine with me. The main thing I took from his writing was the "we screwed it up, we made mistakes and I'm not happy with how it ended up" part. He sounds regretful and it's good to hear.
I don't honestly care anymore whether or not the people involved actually think they improved the game. I did for a long time, but not anymore. The fact that the issue still comes up daily about what a disaster the NGE is 3 years after everyone has canceled their accounts is evidence enough for me.
The nicest thing was just hearing his admittance of failure. I couldn't really ask for anything more.
Kylrathin said on 1:19AM 6-27-2008
Un... you gave the last word to Rubenfield's partner-in-crime. They both submitted the prototype of the NGE for approval. His opinion is as valid as Rubenfield's, which to most vets who were jilted is to say, it's not.
Oh, and while I doubt that the lack of notice and corresponding launch of Trials of Obi Wan was the most frequent player complaint (that should probably go to "they have not yet released classic servers"), it is likely the most frequently used reason for possible litigation. Bait-and-switch is frowned upon in American courts, I'm told.
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