Thursday, October 16, 2003

SOE Shoots Itself In The Jimmies



Two days ago, an SOE employee announced on the Star Wars Galaxies page that the next hotfix would change the loot drop tables to include the mythical Holocrons. Finding a holocron would give you a hint as to what you needed to do next to unlock your secret Jedi character slot.

Then they pushed the fix back a day.

Today, the hotfix went in. I checked the server on which I play at 8:00 and people were already logged in killing NPCs for all they were worth. By noon, a person whom I know electronically had killed nearly 2,000 Meatlump thugs and had found exactly zero holocrons. People were calling in sick, taking vacation days, skipping class, what have you just so they could finally (FINALLY!) get a hint about becoming a Jedi.

At 13:00 Eastern time, they revised the patch notes to remove any mention of adding holocrons to the drop tables. That's right ... they silently decided not to put them in.

What could have been the single biggest day in terms of SWG excitement by the players has instead turned into yet another high hard one from SOE. I don't know whether it's due to error, malfeasance, or just plain f*ck-up-edness but they managed to turn a silk purse into a sow's ear.

Don't get me wrong ... I'm not cancelling my account, nor will I quit playing. I'm just saying that this is symptomatic of SOE's general state. They might have fixed quite a large number of things, but they somehow manage to screw the pooch every single time. Good job, fellows!

Monday, October 13, 2003

It's good to see that the Catholic Church has its priorities straight.
David Kay's testimony before Congress is online. This is about the state of Iraq's WMD programs as determined by the inspection teams sent in after the Three Weeks War. I won't taint you by commenting. Yet.