CBS News recently interviewed John Smedley, CEO of SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) about the changes to Star Wars: Galaxies last year. It’s quite interesting and, probably because it’s actually a ‘reputable’ journalistic organisation, elicited some better response from Smedley than the usual amateur gaming sites whose usual approach to a constructive and informative interview goes along the lines of “Go on, admit that you’re crap. You’re crap and you know you are.”

Full article is here.

Be sure to also read the letter that a supposed ex-volunteer support officer for SOE wrote too. This ties in with what I read in the online journal of another former SOE employee and Everquest 2 forum moderator who bitched about a lot of what she was asked to do to deceive the customers. (I might consider adding the link later or asking if I can repost what she said here.)

I have been attempting to write this post for, well, the best part of the whole of November now. It was my view, opinion and comment about SOE’s recent overhaul of SWG with their “New Game Experience” or NGE (offically announced here.)

The whole event, in my humble yet ever so loud opinion, can only be fairly described as a complete and utter fiasco. That’s not to say that the changes aren’t needed nor, indeed, to say that the concept of the NGE is not a welcome one. I’d go so far as to say that in principle, I thoroughly approve of the changes. A new non-turn based combat system is potentially more involving and more exciting. Reducing the number of classes can only mean that less development time is spent trying to revamp/balance those classes and more time spent adding new content and fixing the not inconsiderable amount of outstanding bugs. But in this case, SOE’s implementation of the new system was hampered by PPP; Piss Poor Planning.

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The only problem I have to date with the new Star Wars: Galaxies expansion “The Trials of Obi-Wan” is that every time I visit the new planet, Mustafar, I keep humming the tune to “Mustapha” by Queen. Well, that and the blatant disregard for any sense of continuity or consistency with the Galactic Civil War time period (a gripe that firmly places me in the category of ubergeek.) Oh and the blatantly cynical marketing tie-in with the imminent release of the Episode III DVD. But apart from that I’m quite enjoying it.

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I have already pre-ordered the new expansion pack for SWG so will be getting it tomorrow, one week early than official release (which means it will no doubt be full of bugs they’ll spend the next week hotfixing!). This preview by IGN is a week old and doesn’t really give away anything new that those bods who did the beta haven’t already told us apart from one thing: buildings will have windows. I don’t know if this means that existing building models will be changed or whether player buildings will now have windows too and I don’t know why I’m thinking “Coool!” but I am.

The screenshots on the article also make me want to get a better video card and a lot more RAM because they look sweet and far better than anything I ever see while playing. Check out the screenie of HK-24 (the assassin robot from Knights of the Old Republic) - marvellous detail.

There’s a lot of people on the official forums whining about this new expansion (what a surprise) and I have to admit that I would have preferred a different planet to be added rather than Mustafar but obviously it’s essential for the marketing bods to push the imminent release of the Episode 3 DVD (available on 31/10 folks!) and I can’t deny that the environments are looking particularly lush. They’re also hazardous to touch - the lava is instakill apparently. Wonder how soon that’ll get nerfed!

SOE pushed out Publish 24 today after a days postponement. Many good things are promised - Squad Leader enhancements, Fixing the Y-8 Mining ship, Change to the mob AI and also some stuff for the next expansion (”Trials of Obi-Wan”) that’s being made available next week.

But it wouldn’t be a proper publish if there wasn’t at least one hitch. This one’s a doozy. Opened up the launchpad and there, in big, friendly letters, was this proclamation:

There also seems to be a major hitch with experimentation with crafters owing to something that’s gone wrong that is frankly beyond my understanding or caring.

UPDATE: An hour or so playing and the place is rife with bugs! I’m no longer glowy, Autopilot no longer works (apparently - I only every fly on manual) and allegedly, Krayt Dragons no longer exist. Unfortunately, I managed to read this as Jedi no longer exist the first time I read it and was sorely disappointed when I realised what it actually said.