Raph Koster pointed me to an article of one of the most infamous moments history in MMOdom – the moment where Sony Online Entertainment decided to entirely redo the entire game, cutting entire character classes, and replacing the core combat mechanic with ‘clicky combat’. This event was known as the New Game Experience, commonly referred to as the NGE. I have in the past described it as one of the largest mass-scale fuckups ever perpetuated on a large-scale MMO – it was a truly catastrophic event, both in terms of what it did to the game experience players loved, as well as what it did to the game’s population.
Of particular interest was Gordon Walton claiming responsibility for the whole thing, and community manager Tiggs going on an epic rant about the revamp, which ultimately cost her her job. From my part, I was working down the road on Shadowbane at the time, and I can remember two things. First and foremost, I remember a steady stream of Sony people suddenly flooding me with mail, friend requests, phone calls, looking for a life boat out. In the trenches, faith in the NGE was apocalyptically low.
Secondly, I remember this event that shows the danger of pissing off an established community. The NGE was not long after WoW was starting to show signs of real success, and made decision makers reevaluate what success looks like in the MMO genre. Lagging slightly behind EverQuests numbers went from seeming pretty good to seeming anemic as fuck for a major licensed MMO almost overnight. The logic behind the change was that getting rid of the Sim and replacing it with more conventional combat might alienate some of your existing customers, but their defections would be swamped by new people signing up. What the logic failed to account for was that the existing community wouldn’t just quit. They went to the press and poisoned the well. It’s hard for your recruitment initiative to pick up steam when you’re battling perceptions like this Wired article, which seemed everywhere while this was ongoing.
One of the classic game mistakes (usually made in sequels, but here made in MMOs) is desiring someone else’s customers more than you desire your own fans.
I am spending more time reading children’s stories these days, and thinking about SWG in that mindset immediately brought to mind one of Aesop’s fables… http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/milowinter/85.htm
Wow, has that been 10 years already!?
SWG was the first paid MMO I was persuaded to join up to… two weeks before NGE dropped!!!
I don’t regret the money spent, if for no other reason than I’d never seen game forums update so fast before, and it gave me a sense of perspective on what to expect from MMOs (A perspective I frequently misplace 🙂 )
I never stayed around to see the kinks ironed out, too much of what had originally attracted me (primarily the class system) had been stripped out. It seems somewhat ironic that I am more than happy to play SWTOR with its limited number of classes (but I knew about that before I joined up).
A cautionary tale on the pitfalls of trying to expand your player base away from the day one demographic.
Pre-NGE SWG was so good. That Entertainer profession, amirite? “Touch my bum / This is life (link below SFW)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVS1-227T-U