Remember the NGE| A Matter of Learning from Past Mistakes

jarnkoldur · April 2017

A long time ago in an MMORPG far, far away...

An update did come to pass within another MMORPG resulting in a dissonance which killed the community. A dissonance of which echoes within what we are experiencing at this very moment.

I don't want to see this community suffer.

http://massivelyop.com/2015/08/22/the-game-archaeologist-star-wars-galaxies-nge/

To the DEVs;
Please do not linger within the ignorance of silence, deeming what actions you take to be warranted and just. Be amongst the people of your community. Listen to them, gather their thoughts and be empathetic to their desires. For they are the ones whom claim denizenship within the world you created and shape it's future.

Support the community and the community shall support you.

Kodrac · April 2017

It's about time an NGE post came about. This forum is slower than others I guess. Not over reacting or anything. Not at all.

starkerealm · April 2017

So, as I recall, the NGE was a point where the devs took a sandbox game, and attempted to transform it into a themepark, waxing entire class options and skill lines in the process, which players had spent considerable time working on, and obliterating most of the non-combat classes entirely.

So, yeah, that's exactly the same as a minor tweak to game balance for extremely high level characters and a content drop.

Rex-Umbra · April 2017

This is not the nge

AndrewQ84 · April 2017

This is not NGE. NGE changed the entire way the game was played. Everything changed. This is just a patch with a some changes to the way some skills work and the way resource management plays out. The game still plays the same. The way things are done are still the same. Crafting is the same, characters are the same, questing is the same. It's all still the same game. Stop trying to compare some minor changes with a complete overhaul of another game. That's like saying some renovations to a particular wall on your neighbors house has now turned your entire neighborhood into a drug infested ghetto.

And for the record, the forums and YouTube streamers do not constitute the community. At best, the forums make up a small percentage of the whole community voice. The vast majority never even come to the forums. If they really wanted to hear the "voice of the community", they would need to log into the game and speak with everyone and see what they all say.

Rhoric · April 2017

NGE wasn't bad at all. I was there before it hit and was still there years after it hit. It wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.

Balamoor · April 2017

starkerealm wrote: »

So, as I recall, the NGE was a point where the devs took a sandbox game, and attempted to transform it into a themepark, waxing entire class options and skill lines in the process, which players had spent considerable time working on, and obliterating most of the non-combat classes entirely.

So, yeah, that's exactly the same as a minor tweak to game balance for extremely high level characters and a content drop.

What the OP also left out is some certifiable lunatics that played SWG actually threatened harassed and stalked both developers and anyone that didn't have a problem with the changes. It got so bad that both SOE's legal team and the FBI got involved.

Really no one wants to make parallels with what happened then and now. Sites like Rock Paper Shotgun, the Escapist and Xplay all talked about the scary cult like group of nutters that played SWG.

This community has a handful of people that goes over a drama cliff and most of them thankfully are leaving to hear them talk, it's nothing like the nutbars that played SWG, and Zenimax would never let the community get to the point that SOE did.

Kodrac · April 2017

Rhoric wrote: »

NGE wasn't bad at all. I was there before it hit and was still there years after it hit. It wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.

Someone get a rope. We have a blasphemer that needs hanging.

masterbroodub17_ESO · April 2017

DOOOOOOOOOOOM

Rohamad_Ali · April 2017

Not even comparable . Not even close .

MasterSpatula · April 2017

Confession time: I started after NGE, and if the game had launched as NGE, it wouldn't have been a problem. NGE was fine. It just was fundamentally not the game people had fallen in love with.

I guess it's up to you to decide if this is approximately the same thing. 1.6, 2.0, and One Tamriel all have been called "NGE" or "CU" by people. Hell, I'm sure the lighting pass was called "NGE" by someone.

I'm perfectly capable of thinking the proposed changes are a bad idea based on the blatantly and obviously faulty premise that a problem affecting elite players is actually a problem for everyone and punishing people who genuinely find sustain in this game too weak already for the actions of elites who have endless resources is straight-up imbecilic without thinking it's an NGE-level mistake.

That said, Godwin's Law has the fundamental error that sometimes your opponent is actually a National Socialist--and likewise, people may break out NGE comparisons too readily, but you're not going to really recognize an NGE-level mistake until after the fact. NGE took almost three years to kill off the game, after all.

DanaDark · April 2017

NGE was... something else.

True SWGs players don't talk about it. We don't bring it up. We shed a single tear and an embracing look at each other when it comes up.

Only those that were there could ever really know.

whiteshadow711jppreub18_ESO · April 2017

Correct link for NGE

Balamoor · April 2017

masterbroodub17_ESO wrote: »

DOOOOOOOOOOOM

Malamar1229 · April 2017

This is not anything close to what the NGE was....

Agobi · April 2017

Comparing the NGE to an upcoming expansion and some balancetweaks?

Overreact much?

But as trollposts go,not too bad

MasterSpatula · April 2017

To put my perspective in a slightly different way: No, this is not an NGE-level mistake. But it has indicated the ZOS has the capability and the arrogance to make an NGE-level mistake.

jarnkoldur · April 2017

My apologies,
My intent was to compare the dissonance within our community currently as to that of what occurred during the NGE in Star Wars Galaxies -as I remember it. As of recent, one easily witnesses passionate anger seething throughout the community causing a lot of strife amongst the player-base. Lamentably one of the most profound mistakes of the NGE was the lack of communication, or the neglect of heeding the community, from the perspective of the devs. Regardless of the outcome of this and future updates, I do not wish for this community to suffer.

NGE and this Update are not comparable in terms of how it affected the system in which it took place, but it would be unresonable and ignorant not to see the echoes of a community wrought with worry and anger due to a lack of communication.

Regardless of the turn out of the update, I desire only the best for ESO and our community.

Kyosji · April 2017

Rhoric wrote: »

NGE wasn't bad at all. I was there before it hit and was still there years after it hit. It wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.

You must have been one of the 12 (?) classes already made. I had an extremely well known and well respected Doc/Combat medic with a few hospitals near key battle points of interest. I had side deals with entire hunting gangs to give me the best avian meats for my drugs...my god I always had the best drugs. NGE killed that.

I also had a character I was holo grinding, then village grinding. Spent a few years with that as my only focus. Again, it was killed off with NGE.

NGE just took every players progress over the last few years, crumbled it up, and set it on fire in front of the players.

First time I've ever heard of a game company settling a class action lawsuit. Got my money back for the Trials of Obi-wan expansion (NGE was a surprise release with this expansion people weren't expecting), and got a few months of game time refunded.

*wipes a tear from his eye* God I miss that game.

Quantum_Knight · April 2017

I don't know how many played it, but this update seems more in line of the "Enhancement Diversification" update from City of Heroes. That update added diminishing returns to the enhancement system, so you couldn't stack everything into a power to make it either cost almost nothing or do way more damage than intended. Obviously, this game doesn't share the same qualities of COH, but I believe the thought is the same. IIRC, everyone was decrying the death-knell of COH at that time, too, but it ended up being a better game for it. Hopefully, ZOS has a bigger plan in mind with these changes that will come to light as the game continues.

Kyosji · April 2017

I just hope ZOS doesn't lie to the players again. It was their lies that got me and all my friends to quit over a year ago. We're giving it another shot, but we are keeping an eye out.

jarnkoldur · April 2017

Kyosji wrote: »

I just hope ZOS doesn't lie to the players again. It was their lies that got me and all my friends to quit over a year ago. We're giving it another shot, but we are keeping an eye out.

All I can hope for is communication: communication between the devs and the playerbase; constructive communication between the players.

Often times, it seems, people forget that we are all part of a community. If one person, whether good or bad, leaves it diminishes our community.

I am hoping that doesn't come to pass.

I am really hoping.

MasterSpatula · April 2017

jarnkoldur wrote: »

All I can hope for is communication: communication between the devs and the playerbase

Welcome to the constant, nonstop request of the last three years.

Armitas · April 2017

whiteshadow711jppreub18_ESO wrote: »

Correct link for NGE

Wow. This deserves it's own movie. With the narrator from ancient aliens.

Emmagoldman · April 2017

Anyone play fallen earth? That was my mmo before eso and I played for about 5 years. Its been awhile, so I dont recall which patch, but we lost about 1/5th of the population with I believe 2.6. Why?

The dev teamed ignored testing group feedback and the general consensus of the community. They had their own plan. Maybe similar to flying people to their office for feedback or these forums and falling on deaf ears?

They ignored common bugs that were easy fixes.

Game play was more and more centered for casuals and became more similar to a shooter then rpg. The weapons were narrowed into three op weapons taking a crafting element out of the game.

To say a patch cant have impact......I dont know, Ive seen patches wreck a population. The biggest clan was no 2.6 and people were deleting the new weapon sets. Ignkred by the devs and people were frustrated.

Anyone else experience another mmo that a patch wrecked a population?

Armitas · April 2017

I definitely see a lot of structural similarities. In particular this from Tiggs.

"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. "

"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. "

^although cosmetics have not been listed as a lag source, all the procs and triggers have.

Phinix1 · April 2017

Moral: Game studios are run by calculators not people. Calculators do not learn from history.

ArchMikem · April 2017

This part of the article stood out to me the most.

“There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an opportunity to be a part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves.”

That right there would've been enough for me to seriously kill my use of the game. Instant Gratification is never a good thing. And the sad part is that's kind of how ESO already is. Kill Mob, get Mats, repeat.

zyk · April 2017

People who compare this patch to NGE are morons. There's no nicer way of putting it. It's not even the most radical patch ESO has seen. The blanket vet nerf, 1.6, 1T, all had a greater overall impact.

Phinix1 · April 2017

zyk wrote: »

People who compare this patch to NGE are morons. There's no nicer way of putting it.

Yes, there is.

zyk · April 2017

The irony of NGE comparisons is that ESO's current audience is the one that Smedley was trying to appeal to. ESO is the ultimate casual MMO theme park.

ESO NGE happened when vet content was blanket nerfed and ZOS announced its new vision for the game shortly after launch -- a process that culminated with 1T in 2.6. ESO was supposed to have strong core and hardcore gaming elements which were wiped from the roadmap.

I can't say I've played 3.0.0, but I think someone who could say that would be amazed by the reactions in the forums. I don't think it's *that* different. I think I'd be able to do everything I can do today.

This forum has gone full-whacking day.