Sony blind to mounting Galaxies complaints

by Jennie Lees { Dec 16th 2005 at 6:00PM }

We've already heard plenty of your Star Wars Galaxies woes, and yet John Smedley is smiling happily and seems extremely pleased with the changes. It's not every day that a game sees players quitting with this much vitriol, and if the top-level executives are professing their satisfaction with the changes and the future of the game, are they focusing on entirely the wrong thing?

After all, the future of the game depends on it having a solid 'present', and with the amount of player unhappiness that seems to be rife in SWG at the moment, nothing looks certain. Rather than rescue a sinking ship, or roll back the changes, Sony are instead trying to make their product a WoW-killer and increase player numbers. From where we're standing, it all seems to be going horribly wrong.

Smedley's recent interview sums it all up: "One thing that I love about our company is that there is no "quit" in this company." No, but if the quotes in this CBS mailbag are anything to go by, there won't be any players left either. Our sympathies are with the front-line community team, who are having to placate irate players, help new players adjust and deal with the ramblings of a seemingly blind and insane company president to boot.

[Thanks, Technopulp]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jesse J. Anderson @ Dec 18th 2005 9:38PM

Thank you!

I tried out Galaxies on the beta and launch and... it just wasn't fun.

The new changes have enticed me and a group of my friends that are planning to try out the demo together when things calm down a little bit after christmas (so we have sufficient time to lose in SW:G).

Thanks for sticking to your guns and trying to make a great idea into a great game, Sony. (wow, never thought I'd be thanking Sony for anything).

jholdaway @ Dec 18th 2005 9:38PM

Yes, all true. But if EVERYONE can have fun then your mom your kids, you 6 year old niece all will be using your game when I, i mean "you" want to play it!

Chris @ Dec 18th 2005 9:38PM

I quit over the summer because yeah, it's great that mom and son and whoever can play Star Wars Galaxies, but now that means I have to make business deals and serious conversation with some consistently distracted 9-year old. Sounds like a blast to me, and that's not even mentioning the combat upgrades!

Farkman @ Dec 18th 2005 9:38PM

I wanted to try SWG after all the changes were done. I installed this demo disc I got at G.A.M.E. and tried it out. And it's not bad, except that every time I play for about half an hour it resets back to the start of the tutorial. I think if SOE wants to sell subscriptions they should make sure their software works first.

Tom @ Dec 18th 2005 9:38PM

I bought the game when it was first released and within two weeks I was bored to death. The endless hours of grinding and the completely idiotic quests that just had you running around the planet with no purpose.

I found the new demo to be very refreshing and the story based quests are much more fun. I subscribed and was a little confused by all of the changes but now I've already played longer than I did the first time and find it to be majory improved... except for the fact that there doesn't seem to be any reason for having money ???

All in all it will never overtake WOW simply because the graphics are subpar at best and there are times when the LAG makes me want throw my computer out of the window. I think it will, however, breath at least a temporary bit of new life into the old horse.

Delta @ Dec 22nd 2005 6:27AM

I don't know, I personally will not buy another sony or lucas art game again, I did not know this was a game requiring a subscription, and i tried contacting sony, they told me I could not use the 30 day trial even to see if i liked it to buy a game card, they basically told me to screw off, if I would have seen the fine print, i never would have bought it, i figured having to eat the 20 buckks aint so bad if i get the trial, but i got to give them more money to do the trial, I have talk to 3 peaople so far that have not been able to stop SOE from deducting $from there account untill they closed there checking account all together and opened a new one, they will not get my CC info, and might have got me as a game card suscriber if they let me try it out, I don't know, SOE and LUCAS ARTS could give a rats ass about customer service, that's for sure... I love everything that has to do with star wars, untill it came to this,... screw SOE and Lucas arts